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How To Alleviate The Alleged "Worker Shortage" - Stop Subsidizing Non-Work
Submitted by Heritage's Stephen Moore via David Stockman's Contra Corner blog,
The great conundrum of the U.S. economy today is that we have record numbers of working age people out of the labor force at the same time we have businesses desperately trying to find workers. As an example, the American Transportation Research Institute estimates there are 30,000 – 35,000 trucker jobs that could be filled tomorrow if workers would take these jobs–a shortage that could rise to 240,000 by 2022.
While the jobs market overall remains weak, demand is high for in certain sectors. For skilled and reliable mechanics, welders, engineers, electricians, plumbers, computer technicians, and nurses, jobs are plentiful; one can often find a job in 48 hours. As Bob Funk, the president of Express Services, which matches almost one-half million temporary workers with employers each year, “If you have a useful skill, we can find you a job. But too many are graduating from high school and college without any skills at all.”
The lesson, to play off of the famous Waylon Jennings song: Momma don’t let your babies grow up to be philosophy majors
Three years ago the chronic disease of the economy was a shortage of jobs. This shortage persists in many sectors. But two other shortages are now being felt—the shortage of trained employees and of low-skilled employees willing to work. Patrick Doyle, the president of Domino’s Pizza, says that the franchises around the country are having a hard time filling delivery and clerical positions. “It’s a very tight labor market out there now.”
This shortage has an upside for workers because it allows them to bid up wages. When Wal-Mart announced last month that wages for many starter workers would rise to $9 an hour, well above the federal legal minimum, they weren’t being humanitarians. They were responding to a tightening labor market.
The idea that blue collar jobs aren’t a pathway to the middle class and higher is antiquated and wrong. Factory work today is often highly sophisticated and knowledge-based with workers using intricate scientific equipment. After several years honing their skills, welders, mechanics, carpenters, and technicians can, earn upwards of $50,000 a year–which in most years still places a household with two such income earners in the top 25 percent for income. It’s true these aren’t glitzy or cushy jobs, but they do pay a good salary.
So why aren’t workers filling these available jobs–or getting the skills necessary to fill them. I would posit five impediments to putting more Americans back to work:
First, government discourages work. Welfare consists of dozens of different and overlapping federal and state income support programs. A recent Census Bureau study found more than 100 million Americans collecting a government check or benefit each month. The spike in families on food stamps, SSI, disability, public housing, and early Social Security remains very high even 5 years into this recovery. This should come as no surprise given the combination of the scaled back welfare work requirements and the steep phase-out of benefits as a recipient begins earning income.
Economist Peter Ferrara argues in his new book “Power to the People,” that if ” we simply required work for all able-bodied welfare recipients, the number on public assistance would fall dramatically. This is what happened after the work for welfare requirements in 1996.”
Second, our public school systems often fail to teach kids basic skills. Whatever happened to shop classes? We have schools that now concentrate more on ethnic studies and tolerance training than teaching kids how to use a lathe or a graphic design tool. Charter schools can help remedy this. Universities are even more negligent. Kids commonly graduate from four year colleges with $100,000 of debt and little vocational training. A liberal arts education is valuable, but it should come paired with some practical skills.
Third, negative attitudes toward “blue collar” work. I’ve talked to parents who say they are disappointed if their kids want to become a craftsman–instead of going to college. This attitude discourages kids from learning how to make things, which contributes to sector-specific worker shortages. Meanwhile, too many people who want to go into the talking professions: lawyers, media, clergy, professors, and so on. Those who can’t “do,” become attorneys and sociology professors.
Fourth, a cultural bias against young adults working. The labor force participation rate is falling fastest among workers under 30 (see chart). Anytime a state tries to change laws to make it easier for teenagers to earn money, the left throws a tantrum about repealing child labor laws. The move to raise minimum wages in states and at the federal level could hardly be more destructive to young people. My own research finds that the higher the minimum wage in a state, the lower the labor force participation rate among teenagers.
Anecdotally, I’ve always been struck by how many successful people I have met who grew up on farms and started working–milking cows, building fences, cleaning out the barn–at the age of 10 or 11. They learn a work ethic at a young age and this pays big dividends in the future. Many studies document this to be true.
Fifth, higher education has become an excuse to delay entry into the workforce. I always cringe when I talk to 22 year olds who will graduate from college and who tell me their next step is to go to graduate school. Maybe by time they are 26 or 27 they will start working. Here’s an idea: Colleges could encourage kids to have one or two years of work experience before they enroll.
Here’s an even better idea: Abolish federal student loans and replace the free government dollars with privately sponsored college work programs. For instance, schools like College of the Ozarks require kids to work 15 hours a week to pay their tuition. It’s hardly a violation of human rights if a 21 year old works to fund for their own education–and they will probably get more out of their classes if they do work. Anything easily attained is lightly valued. This would drive down tuition costs too, because students would start demanding more financial accountability and less waste. After all, federal subsidies have increased college costs.
These may seem like old-fashioned and even outmoded ideas. But the decline in work among the young bodes ill for the future. Many European nations have removed the young from the workforce and the repercussion appears to be lower lifetime earnings. A renewed focus on working would also help erode the entitlement mentality ingrained in so many millennials. Instead of more benefits and handouts, this generation needs to get a job.
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So true.
They claim there are 50,000 trucker jobs unfilled. But they offering truckers a lower wage than they did 5 years ago.
Five years from now they will claim that 100,000 trucker jobs are unfilled. But they will only offer a wage even lower than they offer now.
Ten years from now self-driving trucks will hit the road and it will be "fuck you, go get your food stamps" to all the truck drivers.
Eleven years from now they will start laying off robot truck drivers because no real people will be able to afford all the shit they are trucking around.
The world is going down a strange path
The commies want a revolution.
They think they're going to win.
They just might.
When i was young 40 years ago I walked up to any job site and asked do you need help.
I was handed a paper to write my name address and SS number.
That was it I wss working.
Reseme background and drug test for dish washer. You know what fuck you I can still run a trout line.
I once collected 500.00 worth of bottles and cans in one weekend.
I can double that in weed in 5 min.
I really dont need you.
AMEN, BROTHER....AND I REMEMBER WHEN YOU DROVE DOWN THE MAIN STREET OF MOST ANY TOWN AND SAW HELP WANTED SIGNS IN WINDOWS...WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME ANYONE HERE SAW A HELP WANTED SIGN?
PLace a bounty on these illegal disease spreading fence jumpers.
Stop all welfare except for bags of flour, rice, bricks of cheese and gallons of milk.
Stop the vortex of idiocy that is funneling the braindead into taking up worthless majors at the intellectual white towers of fraud called academia.
This analysis is a typical pedestrian survey of the problem of poverty and work in the U.S. It is correct on the face of it. Yes, the government discourages work. Yes, the public school system is terrible. Yes, the young people are not required to work in many cases and never learn an appropriate work ethic.
However, this does little to clarify the problems. So let us take a deeper look.
1) The USD is hopelessly overvalued. This is crushing the U.S. labor market. Go to South America or Asia. How many U.S.-made products do you find there? I live in Argentina. I see some John Deere tractors and a few caterpillar trucks. Otherwise, nothing made in the U.S. is here or in any other South American country. Yes, there are Chevies and Fords on the road, but these are made right here, not in the U.S.One of the biggest surprises that I found living here was that, except for electronics, there is almost nothing made in China for sale in stores here either. Why? Because everything else made in China can be made here for comparable price (and in many cases, better quality).
2) The cost of living in the U.S. is beyond outrageous. This is the result of numerous factors: overfinancialization of the economy with banks taking skim on everything, overlegalization of the economy (everything is regulated to the nth degree in the U.S., which is great for bureaucrats and lawyers, but drives up the cost of everything), insurance for everything (insurance is an enormous added expense in the lives of everyday Americans: housing insurance, car insurance, etc...). One of the first things that you notice, living in South America, is that in the center of the city, during a business day, there are very few men in suits. Why? Because there are not legions of legal, financial, and insurance parasites feeding off the productive sectors of the economy.
2A) Transportation. I can get to almost any address in South America from the bus terminal in the center of the city here. People use buses to commute to work every day. The cost of a round-trip commute from a suburb to the city-center here 75 cents. The bus-lines are all private companies, and the service is exempary at a reasonable price. The smallest towns have bus stations and taxis are available from there. 125 and 150 cc engine motorcycles are a very common means of transportation. The cost of one of these motos new.. about $500. Just try to find one of these in the U.S. You can´t touch a motorcycle in the U.S. new for less than $8000. Then the insurance. I can insure my motorcycle here for $15 per month. Moreover, cities are built around their centers here, with everything closer together. Transportation to work is much cheaper here. Everyone can get to work. Not true in the U.S. If you are on welfare, good luck finding transportation to work. You cannot afford a car, insurance, etc... to even look or a job, and good luck with the public transportation. If you don´t live in New York, Washington, North Chicago, etc... you cannot get to work without a car.
2B) Medical Costs. Yes, there are dentists and doctors here, even specialists. The public health system functions for basic services: setting broken bones, infections, etc. The private system is satisfactory not great, but satisfactory for the vast majority of health problems (I worked in healthcare administration in the U.S.... so I have a basis for comparison). The typical cost of a visit to a private physician or specialist... $15. The typical cost of an overnight hospital stay, with I.V., X-Ray, etc... $40. The 100X more that you pay for healthcare in the U.S. is providing you only marginally better service, and the cost of insuring workers is outrageous.
So it is not as simple as saying... welfare and bad public education makes people lazy. It is a structural problem with the whole of U.S. society. Development is too spread out. Public transportation does not exist, and it is nearly impossible for people without jobs to acquire transportation to even search for a job. Transportation, medical, and financial service costs make everything in the U.S. too expensive to compete in the global marketplace.
The bottom line is that your economy is inefficient at every level. It is only the overvalued USD as a the world reserve that keeps the whole thing afloat. If that comes down, all those hopeless ineffiencies in the U.S. economy will be exposed dramatically.
You got it. Deregulation was Reagans' mantra and he was right. We desperately need to lessen the influence of legal and financial parasites as well as make opportunities accessible and meaningful again to the common man. That is going to be a tall and probably impossible order but it all starts with increased Federalism.
The U.S. really should look to Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay as a model for how to become more efficient. There are just not that many regulations here. Anyone can fix their own car, with whatever parts they want, including scrap metal fabricated at home... try that in the U.S. since most states have inspection laws. Anyone can build their own house, however they want. If you want to dig a 2 foot deep square trench in the ground, fill it with concrete, lay bricks on top of it, and cover it with sheet metal, then live in it... you can. No one will stop you. And many people do exactly this to start off their lives as young couples. Then add on and build up their property as they age and acquire more capital. If you want to get your electricity from an extension cord running from your neighbor´s house... you can. No one will stop you. Imagine this in the U.S.
It is not just the regulations. It is the enforcement. There are regulations here on many businesses here. It is just, if you pay your taxes, no one enforces the regulations. The regulations are really just to get people to pay taxes. No regulatory ever shows up, unless you are late on your taxes.
AMEN, BROTHER!
I would love to see housing in america like they have in latin america. No lawn in the front yard--just a brick wall with a house and courtyard inside. You build the house with concrete blocks and plaster, and there is plenty of room for multiple generations inside. You build your own house. No more mortgage.
great post...it is so good to read what mature, experienced, wise people have to say. In contrast, look at what the america media puts out.
And look at what most of the GOP and Dem base think about things. The GOP and Dem base are INSANE!
The GOP base is rabidly against government in general. Yes, the federal govt and the larger state govt's are out of control. So break up the USA to some degree, decentralize power. Gov't is not inherently evil.
The Democrat base is rabidly anti-white and pro-immigration. Whoa!
And the libertarians are no better.In some ways they combine the worst of the GOP and Dems.
Yes, we need to deregulate and de-bureaucratize. But you cannot do that until you break the power of the large central gov'ts.
Americans are so propagandized from youth that they cannot think straight.
Don't worry - we'll get there soon enough - after the economic re-set! I'm not surprised you do not see any 'made in USA' products. The USA stopped making most products in the 1980's.
Good post.
And, in addition, don't forget that over 15% of all American workers work for the government at some level. They make fabulous wages and have golden benefit packages. In return they provide zero productive benefit to society.
We have 30,000,000 people working for government making an average of nearly $100,000 in wages, benefits and accrued pension. This cost is borne by all the rest of us, a growing number of whom are struggling along on $10 to $15 an hour with no benefits.
The HVAC man that has serviced our 2 heat pumps for the last 15 years informed us on his last visit he was retiring. Over 65 and had had enough (Hot Summers). Told him thanks and wished him the best. Had his boss out looking to replace my older heat pump and was checking on the geo thermal option as it has a real nice tax credit. Asked him about the retirement and he said it lasted about 6 months and now back on the job at higher pay and more vacation. Said they cannot get any young folks in the system. Told me they can easily make +$70K a year with overtime and generous vacation and health package. Thats still pretty good jack in the MW uncomfortable work in the summer yes and deep winter but also time with little to do and still get paid. Said most kids have very little exposure to things mechanical or fixing anything (single Mom phenom) and the Blue Collar trades prejudices. Not the kids coming off the farms, or working on cars, bikes, etc. so the fix it culture has taken a big hit. Can't help but think that is going to haunt us for along time. Meanwhile we have lots of unemployed that could fill these jobs. Think its a problem for both sides in matching up needs but no doubt people need to adust there thoughts on this type of occupation.
Stephen Moore has always been a little to much in favor of lots of immigration for me I prefer the opposite.....but he makes some good points here and should not be written off just because he has that view. IMO.
Show me one trade school that guarantees all graduates a job.
You can't
The jobs don't exist.
you live in rural kansas, right?
Nope Wichita area ~500K population, 12 miles from downtown. The area I live in used to be more rural. Had to have at least 10 acres to get rural water. Now still a fair amount of those type homes and farming. But a Target, Buffalo Wild Wings, Starbucks, Olive Garden, 3 kinds of pizza chains, Rib Crib, Panera, Panda, Super Kroger (Dillons), Petsmart, etc etc within 1.5 miles.
Real wage for real work would do it.
I read the comments on this and othe zerohedge articles. I find it amusing. We're commenting on a website that takes it's slogan from the novel/movie Fight Club. The administrator(s) go by the handle Tyler Durden. We call the comment section Fight Club. However, it doens't take a rocket scientist to realize that the commenters on this blog, with very few exceptions. have:
a) Never seen/read Fight Club OR
b) Didn't understand it OR
c) Thought it was a crock of shit.
If you answered yes to any of those then WTF are you doing here?
Again, it's just too damned expensive out there to justify working.
1/3rd of your daily pay will go to lunch and travel expenses lol
The sad truth for 90% of everyone out there
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/32/b4/83/32b4834949b7f619bba7d...
According to Mish, there aren't going to be any trucking jobs by 2022 due to robots.
Also, I have a few friends in construction trades. Some are working, some aren't. They actually have more guys laid off now than they did in 2009.
Eliminate wage rates
Eliminate minimum wages
Eliminate welfare
Eliminate Unions
Eliminate monopolies in banking and insurance
Lower taxes 10% across the board
You will have 2% unemployment (calculated the "real" way)
Low Inflation
Higher Tax Revenue
Higher GDP
O but wait, we live in a society where a government of the many is paid to point guns at the few so that the many don't have to work.
mhhhmmm
In that case, John Galt this mutha fukr.
Working people have become a minority.
We are a population of the poor entitled lol
Stop subsidizing lazy, traitorous, whining managers.
Sure there's a problem anyone hiring US workers has to compete with Chinese wages directly or indirectly, so they're offering terrible wages by US measures and so of course it's hard to get good people.
But it's never been easy to get good people, back in the day IBM only hired new college grads and weeded them out year by year and kept the good ones and the lucky ones. Today you get Google and Microsoft managers whining they can't find anybody, but they pay the senior positions the same as junior positions and the starting wages even with a Stanford degree are lower than forty years ago, adjusted for inflation at even the government numbers.
The only out is that today it's easier to start a global company because of the Internet, you as the boss man can pay yourself the 1% wages and whine and cry and hire even Stanford grads at bargain rates. Working for da man went out of favor in the 1980s because it didn't pay, just as it went out of favor in the 1960s because you wanted to turn on and drop out. Working for da man never been a good deal, but da man didn't use to whine about it so much.
Wonderful! Now YOU TOO, with years of training, certificates, tickets and qualifications, can enjoy a career as a pizza delivery driver!
Employers are coddled. They want it all done for them: training, education, credentials, qualifications and, most of all, years of experience...and then you make the short list.
Whatever happened to giving a guy off the street a chance, based on an interview and a handshake?
Instead of blaming government programs how about blaming the parents??
How about the fucking old people take their place in retirement and kick the kids out of the basement??
instead we got old farts hogging jobs that young people used to do, to pay the bills for the punk that still won't move out! (because really I'll feel insecure and lonely if my baby becomes an independent adult)
the problem is not government, the problem is bad parenting.
The author of the article sites transportation jobs, driving trucks 30,000 could go to work today,,,,he fails to mention for less than minimum wage.
Check out that cutthroat transportation fleet, Schneider-Celedon-JB Hunt- MS Carriers-PTL...etc. After they get you hired with a bunch of lies (that is what these companies do for a living is lie to their drivers) You will find out exactly why there are 30,000 driver jobs open. Their driver turn-over rate makes McDonalds look like a career.
Consider the pay for example $.40/mile 7 days a week, generally averaging 8 drive hours per day. That is approx. 2800 miles or $1020.00 gross pay, and you drove 56 hours, and you worked 14 more hrs. doing things, for a total of 70 'legal' hrs. worked. Sounds good when you can get it, but most of those big transportation companies have no problem giving every driver unnecessary hang-ups, a rolodex of excuses gives the shaft to great drivers daily.
Most drivers for those companies listed above make approx. half, 1500 miles in 7 days, not because the driver is lazy, but because the management over staffs in the first place and then spread their mismanagement among all the drivers, till the drivers simply quit in frustration while waiting on the manager to actually manage.
Freight volume in this country dried up before 2008.
wwxx
Hey Moore the Heritage Foundation is nothing more than crony capitalist enabler.. How about stock options as normal income, or buybacks double taxed unless it goes toward R&D or capx. Moore has never nerve reported on anything but political economics and the regulations and military police fascist overthrow by the treasonous DNC/RNC/MSM.
This article tells only a fraction of the story/picture, out there.
Ther are plenty of companies these days which treat their employees like garbage, so that's a major factor related with the "we can't find people" meme. Another major factor, at least from what I've seen in manufacturing, is companies have gotten away from on-the-job training, coupled with career development for individual employees and the subsequent raises and whatnot which would accompany such a scenario. That's how it was in manufacturing, up until about 15 years ago or so, but was especially true back in the 70's and int othe 80's.
Gone are the days where people worked their way up through, say, a manufacturing firm. That scenario is all but gone, now. It's a 'who you know and who you blow', dog-eat-dog world in much of manufacturing, which degrades both productivity and sales growth, for many firms. I think it's just another indication that the economy has been sick for many years, I've worked on the floor (as a machinist) and in engineering departments, and I can't stress enough that companies kept hiring dead wood from firms which had downsized their workforces, and put such people in management positions, folks who had no clue what they were doing, and treated their employees accordingly (like shit).
I thought that by now a lot of that dead wood would have been squeezed out of the job market, somehow, but alas that's not the case. Thus companies end up with people in charge who don't have the faintest clue who they should hrre, and for that matter what to ask somebody on a job interview when they fall in the door.
People who haven't worked truly productive jobs, and are thus clueless about what really goes on in the economy these days, write articles like this one.
I guess Stockman likes to let the Heritage wingnut welfare queens show their asses just to remind everyone what kind of clueless asses Heritage keeps in their stable.
" wingnut welfare queens show their asses just to remind everyone what kind of clueless asses Heritage keeps in their stable."
Some of these wingnut welfare queens, have tinfoil hats, so what? And some of those with tinfoil hats, prefer to extract revenue from the government, ON PURPOSE, rather than continue to pay tribute to those crooks in government, and what they stand for.
Some of these tinfoil hat wearing wingnuts know that stupid red, white, and blue flag actually stands for something: Death. When you work, you support the government that demands Death daily. Or haven't you noticed the incarcerated prison population in the land of red, white, & blue? Or haven't you noticed the Iran Contras of yesteryear & today? Or haven't you noticed your local swat team, your local surveillance, and the sweet deals only for those that bribe? How is your work supporting justice, that drunken justice that has prevailed in the land of red, white, and blue for a long time now. I mean really....call an political election fair in the land of red, white, and blue I dare you to claim a fair election and mean it.
So really you have to ask yourself a question punk, what does your work/money stand for? I say absolutely everything. And that is why I refuse to put myself under their judgement, their authority, their Death as much as it be possible. But if I change my mind, I know I can get a job, this day working as an mercenary of Death.
wwxx
The author of the article Stephen Moore makes an sad break from reality. From the article: "A recent Census Bureau study found more than 100 million Americans collecting a government check or benefit each month" " Economist Peter Ferrara argues in his new book “Power to the People,” that if ” we simply required work for all able-bodied welfare recipients, the number on public assistance would fall dramatically. This is what happened after the work for welfare requirements in 1996.” Doesn't Stephen Moore realize that of 100M people, most of whom are already required to work? This is part of the Heritage lie, to explain things with distortions. EBT recipients are required to work, in order to obtain the EBT benefit. Only the Dept. of Human Services (DHS) doesn't call it work, they call it volunteer. That is what they do, DHS requires 30 volunteer hours per month to obtain your EBT benefit, your EBT is not simply 'given to you' as Stephen Moore and others would like for you to believe. If you don't believe me check out this page that shows how many people 'volunteer' in the state, of which happens to be about 25% of the state population. http://humanservices.arkansas.gov/pressroom/Pages/default.aspx
So what have we then? 100M people nationwide on assistance, lets take half of those, 50M people that are physically able to 'volunteer'. Of that 50M lets say they volunteer an conservative average of only 15 hours/ month. {50M X 15hrs. = 750M hrs.) That is conservatively 750M hours volunteered/ month~~~~think of that~~~~ 750 million hours per month nationwide of volunteer work. That's right, doing those jobs nobody, not even the illegals aliens will do. Mopping floors, recycling trash, taking care of hospital patients, whatever, the list of volunteer duties is diverse as it is huge.
Now think of this, that is 750M hours/month that THE GOVERNMENT has enslaved it's own people, requiring work for little or no pay. Can the Stephen Moores of this world not see that there is where the problem truly lies? 750M hrs/month is a huge amount of underpaid slavery type work, the mantra for it has not changed in 50 years, if you want the EBT benefit, you will work for free, and it shall be given a fake name... called volunteer, when actually it is slavery, of which this red, white, and blue was founded upon, and it continues to this very day.
Of that 750M hrs./mo. that is work that could have been performed in the normal way, by entrepreneurs and companies performing the same work. Is it any wonder the kids of today have to grovel just to get a steady job? Of course it is no wonder, as their very own government has cut-their-throat by demanding that EBT recipients and criminals perform these jobs at slave wages.
I doubt I can make it more clear than that, except that the 750M hrs/ month is just a reasonable guess, but the fact that actual paid work is threatened by such a fact should be obvious. "Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their "employers"." http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/default.aspx
wwxx