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Why Do So Many Working Age Americans Choose Not To Enter The Workforce?
Via ConvergEx's Nick Colas,
Today we look at a unique dataset – Gallup’s annual poll of job satisfaction – to see what it can tell us about secular trends in employment, consumer confidence and spending. This annual survey of +1,000 people active in the U.S. workforce goes back to the late 1980s, so it is a useful lens with which to consider issues like labor force participation rates that have shifted unexpectedly over the period.
Most surprising news first: Americans express a broad satisfaction with their jobs, regardless of economic conditions. The very worst reading since 1989 was in 2011 when “Only” 83% of respondents said they were either “Somewhat” or “completely” satisfied with their jobs. The peak was in 2007 at 94%, and last year (August 2014) it was 89%.
The key takeaway is that declining labor force participation rates since the year 2000 (67% then, 62.6% now) aren’t because of any systemic disaffection with the American workplace.
The other notable takeaway: workers are (strangely, we must say) satisfied with what they earn. Those expressing “Complete” satisfaction with their paystub hit a high last year (31%) not seen since 2010 and 2006… Wage inflation? What for?
You could call it the “Mystery of the Missing Worker” – why do so many people of working age chose not to enter the workforce? Here are the numbers, as of the most recent Employment Situation report:
- 250 million: the total number of people of working age in the United States.
- 149 million: the total number of people in that population that have a job.
- 8 million: the number of people who want a job but do not have one.
- 93 million: the number of people who don’t work, and don’t want work.
To put some context around that last number, it is 30% of the entire U.S. population. This is the same as the current population of the entire West Coast (CA, OR, and WA) AND New York State AND Florida. Plus another 10 million people. Economists measure this with the Labor Force Participation rate, and it has been in decline since February 2000, when it peaked at 67.3%. It is now 62.6% and last month was a new low back to the 1970s. People of working age increasingly do not consider themselves part of the labor force. Most economists chalk this up to the demographics of an aging workforce even though virtually all the literature on the topic in the early 2000 predicted participation would continue to increase.
We recently took a long look at a dataset that doesn’t often see the light of day but does provide some useful takes on how workers view their jobs. It comes from the Gallup organization and is an annual survey of +1,000 employees since 1989 on their perceptions of job satisfaction in all its forms, from health and safety concerns to compensation to job security. The complete data set can be found here, and the charts below highight the trends...
But here are the important takeaways.
#1: Americans are consistently satisfied with their jobs, although the readings vary slightly through a given economic cycle. The highest ever combined responses of “Completely Satisfied” and “Satisfied” was in 2007 at 94%. The worst since the start of the survey in the late 1980s was 2011, at 82%. Last year – the results come out every August – the combined reading was 58% “Completely” and 31% “Somewhat” Satisfied, for a total of 89%.
#2: They also feel relatively secure in their positions. Last year some 88% reported being “Completely” (58%) or “Somewhat” (31%) satisfied by the security offered by their jobs and, implicitly, their employers. The worst readings were in 2009 at 80% total and in the early 1990s at 79%.
#3: Workers also report high levels of satisfaction with what they receive in terms of compensation. Back in 1991 – the worst year in terms of general reported satisfaction for this question – “only” 66% of respondents were completely or somewhat satisfied with their pay stubs. Even during the Financial Crisis and its aftermath that number troughed at 70% in 2011. Last year a total of 75% of respondents were satisfied with what they received for compensation.
#4: Workers who respond to the Gallup survey last year have the biggest gripes about health insurance benefits (only 61% satisfied), retirement planning (only 63% satisfied) and chances for promotion (68%).
#5: Conversely, workers reported exceptionally high levels of satisfaction in their relations with co-workers (95% completely or somewhat satisfied), physical safety (93%) and the flexibility of their hours (90%).
Frankly, when we started to look at these numbers we expected to see a mirror of the volatility common in consumer confidence surveys. A few points here:
- Consumer confidence as measured by the Conference Board peaked in 1966/67 and again in the late 1990s at readings of +140.
- Troughs occurred in the early 1970s, late 1970s/early 1980s and post September 11 at readings of 50 or so.
- The Financial Crisis took us down to below 30 in 2008 and readings struggled to get past 70 until 2013.
We therefore thought that Americans would feel broadly the same about their work situations as they did the economy as a whole - that things are still pretty bad and the past was much better than the present. This turned out not to be the case. Yes, they express some marginal disaffection when times are hard, but the trough reading during and after the Financial Crisis was 83% satisfied with their jobs. Hardly a pitchforks and barricades kind of number.
In short, we can’t blame lower participation rates on the nature of work – broadly speaking – offered in the American economy. In Internet parlance, the American workplace gets 4 ½ stars and a lot of recommendations. Perhaps, in the words of Yogi Berra: “No one goes to that restaurant any more. It’s too crowded”.
* * *
Of course, when work is punished in the Entitlement State Americans live in... what else should we expect but 30% of the employable to sit at home? As we previously explained,
This isthe painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income - to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work.
This is graphically, and very painfully confirmed, in the below chart from Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantitied, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."
We realize that this is a painful topic in a country in which the issue of welfare benefits, and cutting (or not) the spending side of the fiscal cliff, have become the two most sensitive social topics. Alas, none of that changes the matrix of incentives for most Americans who find themselves in a comparable situation: either being on the left side of minimum US wage, and relying on benefits, or move to the right side at far greater personal investment of work, and energy, and... have the same disposable income at the end of the day.
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Most of the people in LA, actually...
Wow, that sucks.
LA has public transportation and even subways. Anytime I try to get someone on the subway they look at me like I am crazy. When they eventually will join me, their nightmares come to life. I would suggest to everyone never take the blue line from Downtown LA (Union Station) towards the South. I wouldn't suggest driving this path either. Otherwise you will get to see exactly what this section is ranting and raving about.
Screw the Rat Race. Amen to that. Go Galt. Be a farmer. Grow your own and starve the Beast.
Here's a great example of what you could do mortgage-free, esp. if you are finished with kids:
http://tinyhousetalk.com/expanding-tiny-house-with-slide-outs-that-will-...
Well, sir, it's this rug I had. It really tied the room together...
Nice reference. Lebowski (sponging) and Lebowski (also sponging). We've got people sponging off of other people sponging. The only incredible thing is that there is enough still produced (for the moment) to keep the image alive. Although we are declining, as long as we decline slowly enough, the frogs stay in the pot. Cooked to perfection!
Some Chinamen took them from me in Korea.
When you pay people to stay home and get drunk & high, they stay home and get drunk & high because it is the easiest thing to do. Socialism breeds extraordinary laziness...
There are probably a few things going on here. Being dissatisfied or unhappy is becoming taboo in the US. It indicates that you're "losing the game". People will overplay their satisfaction with their lives when asked.
Secondly, for many people, there is marginal upside to working, particularly if you are a couple. I know many people who have children but their spouses don't work, because if you make $40K / yr, but have to pay $1.5K in daycare per month, after taxes, working doesn't change your life.
And even if you don't have children, earning a little extra money for your family doesn't really change your standard of living. You're not going to get that big home because it's a million dollars, or that vacation home because it's a million dollars, or take a better vacation because it's ten grand. People are seeing limited upside to working, after taxes and all of the other expenses of working, gas, clothes, food, etc. For many, you are better off staying at home and eschewing the stress for so little gain.
The daycare stuff you cite was a part of our equation. Of course, now that the kids are older the wife's been on me to get off my ass and get back to work.
You make some very good points, but I seriously doubt the polls, as most everything today in Amerika is pure bullcrap, spouted out by moronic jackholes who will do anything for a dollar or two!
Psychopathic workplace?
Is there someone out there (sane and rational, that is) who misses it?
How many have worked job after job, until the day the snarky, punk-assed CEO who graduated from Harvard, announces everyone is laid off and your job is being offshored?
Americans today are synonomous with Vermin, both names are interchangeable.
The CEO of BOEING (subsidiaries, Extreme Rendition Airlines, a k a, Jeppeson Dataplan, Jeppeson Systems, etc., and Narus, which helps various bloody dictators to locate, arrest, torture and kill various pro-democracy activists) just threatened to move offshore from the Seattle area --- just another AMERICAN TRAITOR who workers are tired of doing a good job for!
And he is one of thousands. . .
"How many have worked job after job, until the day the snarky, punk-assed CEO who graduated from Harvard, announces everyone is laid off and your job is being offshored?"
When I was younger I was a debit insurance agent, going house to house on a weekly premium route. I got good enough to make the million dollar roundtable, presidents club and a couple other top salesman awards, started to see decent money. At the peak, my boss fired me, and took over my route himself.
Took on a job selling pizza ingredients from Panama City to through Fort Rucker, Dothan, Two Egg...shit, anywhere. I'd walk into a bowling alley, demo the product, show how easy it was to make and would have a sale. Sale after sale after sale. I became top regional salesman within six months, top national salesman the next quarter, started to see decent money. Boss fired me and took over my route.
Took a job with a sandwich company on a route that almost duplicated my pizza route. Started making sales, then called for coverage so I could attend the birth of my youngest son. They told me I couldn't go, I told them it was non-negotiable. They met me at the hospital to collect the keys.
Decided I wanted to be in air conditioning, with women around to look at and talk to. Had to figure out what to do. About that time PC's were starting to appear and no one really had a clue what to do with them. There was common ignorance so I lied my ass off about working with programs in education (school sent home some sort of device that a cassette would be plugged in, and the kid would watch cheesy, clunky, 'education'. I plugged in the cassette and watched a few.)
I got a temporary job as a project secretary for a $50 million papermill modernization. Busted my ass, saved the company millions in costs and was asked to leave as it wound down.
I'm a little wierd. I like going to work and doing things with people.
From about 35, when I graduated College, until about 45 I rotated in and out of jobs, advancing in career. But I got tired of the 80 to 200 mile one-way commutes in LA/San Diego traffic and wanted to be closer to home. Do do this I took a 2/3 cut in pay and became Controller for a family owned busiess that is remarkably large and, somehow, the family likes me (might have to do with how cheap I am compared to others.) I can take time off in the middle of the day to do an errand, come in on weekends if I want, and be active in the community in volunteerism. My stress level is near zero, my fuel bills are laughably low, and the company leased out a spare building to an auto shop that cuts me huge discounts on repairs.
Those earlier years ruined me, I didn't develop any gardening talents (not especially beneficial in a desert), though I grew up a ranch kid. Going off-grid alone isn't for me. But I've got a couple of people on mutual support. When time comes, if necessary, we'll condense and make the best of it.
And yet no one talks about their stories of starting their own business.
As I am running my business, I wanted to see if I could make some side money for doing relatively nothing. Started with $20, bought some stuff from China and sold it within 5 days. As I was selling I took all the profit and bought more. Was somewhat shocked how well that worked over the last month, basically starting with $20. Ended up going a bit crazy and just bought a lot of stuff to sell. I say basically with $20 because I started to order $200 worth of stuff at a time. I have mentioned this to some others, who needed some extra cash, what I was doing and they keep coming up with excuses why they don't even give it a go with $100. Never a sure fire bet, but it seemed simple enough to me.
Kind of like making a lemonade stand and selling on hot days. Way too much work. I always buy from lemonade stands.
Well there i, you are a ray of sunshine down illuminating that shining city on the hill. I always liked getting home after work, doing life, puting the children to bed and participating with my significant other in the "eschewing". Life is good, then the next adventure begins.
True i call you my base, after 50 years of working I've come to the conclusion that work is very overrated.
Work is for chumps not smart enough to figure out how to avoid it.
Alphas and betas. Alphas and BITCHES. Who is the king of the jungle? The fat lazy Lion that doesn't do anything but sleep, eat, and fuck all day. The bitches bring him food.
Bitches.
So who works for you?
Ever speak to anyone under the age of 40? They're dumb as fucking hammers. We have a couple of guys here in their late 20s that couldn't glue a thought together if life itself depended on it. They're ass deep in video games and weed, comic book nonsense, and the goddamn smartphone.
I had fun watching a Target 20-something trying to figure out my change today. I gave him a five dollar bill, a quarter, and three pennies to pay for $2.28 worth of stuff. It took longer than I thought possible for him to figure out how much I had paid. Fortunately, at least the cash register was smart enough to figure it out how much change I should get.
So you're surprised a 20-something that works at target is stupid?
And as one would have expected, the picture is a white male!
That is just plain mean expecting someone in their twenties to be able to count change.
When I was fourteen,one of my part-time jobs was working at the big store in town. They had cash registers that added up the prices you typed in. People would hand you cash and you had to make change the old fashioned way. One day I was off a dime, you'd have thought I was the dumbest shit on earth from the treatment the owner and other cashiers gave me. (Probation wasn't too bad...I liked restocking beer in the coolers.)
Ever speak to some one over forty? They are usually some fat medicated fuck, guzzling down the brown sauce in an attempt to erase the waste that was their existence. Under forties didnt land us in the current plastic paradise. Tne under forties are typically your booze soaked off spring. The fuckin stork didn't drop them off. Over or under forties, you've typically got some pig man who can't see their own shit is the problem.
I thoroughly agree with both comments. The vast majority of Americans, or Vermin, are congenitally brain dead, which is probably why the only screen characters they can identify with are Zombies!
But they have been thoroughly indoctrinated, all their lives, to mindlessly dwell on, and repeat and regurgitate, idiotic nonsense they view on TV or the movies or the latest Tweet!
When presented with anything factual, they usually discombobulate!
Reflect upon that, please . . .
Yesterday I dubbed running low on coffee "Subcaffinated Dendritic Discombobulation Syndrome". Today's doctors and psychologists are fucking dumb enough to blindly accept some bullshit like that as a real and threating malaise that needs to be suppressed with some magic pills with mystery side effects.
I'll look for that in the DSM VI.
They'll throw a script for SSRI's at you -- you'll be just like the rest of the 6 out of 10 (over age 12) taking this brain-altering crap for about 25 different maladies. Terrifying.
The amount of psychoactive prescription in this country is indeed terrifying. The diversity of personalities humans developed over centuries are now considered "abnormal" and medicated.
Are there legitimate uses for psychoactive drugs? Of course. But with the insurance companies and other paper pushers in charge of determining prescription guidelines, is anyone really surprised we are where we are?
Our financially controlled medical establishment is among the top three greatest threats to humanity in this country. This is not the doctors, for the most part. They have now been cut out of the loop and are forced into implementing protocols they know to be inhumanly stupid. Do some homework on how doctors behave when they have to choose whether to accept care at the end of their own lives. They avoid what they are compelled into doing to others; they know.
The other two greatest threats are the media and the banks. Politicians are just the puppets of the money. Follow the money.
"The vast majority of Americans, or Vermin, are congenitally brain dead,"
If that were true sgt, the doom would already be here, now.
Reflect on that, thourghly.
So Sunshine, how's that "fuckin stork" working out?
I'm in my late thirties. By the time I was 32 I was managing 50 year-olds, and they were some of the dumbest, laziest people. I remember one guy crying in my office because I had taken away his responsibilities because he was an abusive asshole. He fucking cried.
Let's just knock it off. Let's just say the people on this board shouldn't make generalizations.
I will say that my kids' generation does lack a certain push to succeed.
Why not Bandgap, everybody else does!
Well fuck you, then, you ignorant cum swallowing slut.
/sarc
you have a problem with ignorant cum swallowing sluts? you can kiss a job at the irs goodbye then.
Well i, you outed 8 of the "abusive assholes".
Good job.
Oh I guarantee you I'm much smarter than you and I can prove it simply by the fact that you work with people in their 20's. I work with nobody in their 20's because nobody in their 20's has the education, skills, or experience to do what I do.
But I'm under 40 by a significant margin.
Because not working becomes a job in and of itself, and has lots of time off.
Most people that work their ass's off drop dead before or shortly after they retire.
Sad, but the truth. If your working your ass off, do yourself a favor at some point.
Stop, pull everything out of the country those dead beats leach off of, and enjoy it someplace nice before you croak.
You earned it, spend it.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/30/more-paying-obamacare-fines-a...
This will go on until the debt collapse, then DHS is going to need all that ammo it bought.
The people that are working are happy working and the folks that are not are happy not working. The founding father's would be proud.
I chose to go to college. It's F'n work.
Because the government pays your a monthly incentive not to work. And the incentive in many cases is higher than the take home pay of most workers.
A permanent class of Democratic voters.
Wonder what happened to Welfare to Work Program?
2014 fed Outlays Office of Job Corps = $1.59 Billion
2013 fed Outlays Office of Job Corps = $1.58 Billion
2012 fed Outlays Office of Job Corps = $1.77 Billion
2011 fed Outlays Office of Job Corps = $1.66 Billion
2010 fed Outlays Office of Job Corps = $1.85 Billion
Welfare to Work may have ended or lost in other fund line
2005 fed Outlays welfare to work = $6 Million
2004 fed Outlays welfare to work = $18 Million
2003 fed Outlays welfare to work = $312 Million
2002 fed Outlays welfare to work = $500 Million
2001 fed Outlays welfare to work = $659 Million
2000 fed Outlays welfare to work = $527 Million
1999 fed Outlays welfare to work = $267 Million
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law considered to be a major welfare reform.(Bill Clinton sought to fix everything)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Work_Opportuni...
On July 12, The Obama Administration’s new directive allows states to waive the TANF work requirement, gutting the reform of its most critical element and bludgeoning the letter and intent of the law.
Obama allows more people to stay on TANF past 2 year limit...
I don't see what happened to the Funding for Welfare to Work, it probably didn't work ...and Republican let it expire or cut funding in early G.W.B Years.
1996 also is the year of Immigration Law that allows Illegals to stay in the USA for 10 Years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_R...
Ever stop to ask yourself WHY or HOW a society can function with one third of its population being useless eaters? The answer is abundance. They are not forced to, so why would they choose to? On a whole, the human population can produce enough to keep a large percentage of it's population alive while they do nothing. This is probably true for the top tier as well as the lower tier. Feudalism died because of the Black Death and rich folks being forced to till their own fields. Socialism and Communism fell sick because of massive population growth and the human nature to be predators. Capitalism will transition into something else as long as there are more grasshoppers than ants.
Like in nature the Alphas lounge around sleeping, eating, and taking part in leisure activities like fucking and breeding. The workers that think they are successful because of their paycheck are the bitches of the modern age. They make just enough to live SLIGHTLY better than the folks who don't work at all, but at the cost of their life's blood and their soul.
When you repeat the same shit over and over again it is basically spam.
Too expensive to work?
working for yourself is work
working for the man is slavery
Everybody serves somebody. If you work for yourself , your customer is your boss.
i'm lucky i don't have any customers then. ;)
Hey Buzz, I work for myself too and I don't have any customers either.
Except I can tell a potential client no and only work with who I want to work with. I actually like doing what I do to see what I create. If I cared about money I would go become a banker and gut everyone in my path.
I have worked for myself for over 30 years, and I have blown estimates in my working life to where I was practically a slave for all intents and purposes. Being an entrepreneur means that you really do fuck up on estimates sometimes, and when that happens, you eat it, just like a fucking slave, my friend. It only happened a few times, but if I were to claim that it didn't, I would be denying the lesson I learned each time it happened. So, working for yourself is indeed work, but sometimes it is slavery when you screw up BIGtime.
Because the government pays you a monthly incentive not to work. And that incentive in many cases is higher than the take home pay of most workers.
The creation of a permanent class of Democratic voters.
Knock it off with the dem-repub thing. Its ludicrous.
The population's apathy is paid for in table scraps. This way, no one exercises their civic responsibilites so that the PTB can do what they want with the big beast called America. Can have their way with the MIC or give themselves bailouts for example.
The phoney two party thing is just part of the charade that keeps it all going.
I have made more some years and less in others....
I saw no diffrence i the end, just more went to taxes....
Hard work is punished. They want all of us dependent on the system.
Someties I feel stupid for workng hard but I am too scared to just join the club of moochers!
I question the entire premise that states that 93,000,000 working age Americans do not want to work. I would like to know how the Federal propaganda ministry arrived at that conclusion.
I believe the truth is that the Federal propaganda ministry has given these Americans the status of Soviet Union-like non-persons. If they are long-term unemployed they are just not counted regardless of whether they want a job or not. It just doesn't matter what they want.
Excellent points, Gregga777!
Most polls today, like that Pew Research Center poll back in 2006 which claimed the majority of American media was liberal, are pure fiction.
The corporatemcnews keeps framing it like 93 million are lounging around their home swimming pool, just waiting until the wages go super-high before rejoining the workforce, as if every job offshored, or created overseas, or handed off to a foreign visa scab worker, will suddenly become available!
What pure bullcrap . . .
Yeah, but the cheap cunt who wrote this article carried it the extra mile--the extra 100 miles, by appropriately Special Olympic standards--to reach the conclusion he did by such a rapturously twisted route.
After gas, tolls, wear and tear, breakfast and lunch and of course taxes. I have never been richer since I stopped working.
This is true, add not paying daycare, tutoring, dog groomer, etc. And my rough estimate is I'm making (saving) around $20 an hour based on a 40 hour week.
Does that mean you're on doal?
#41
What life gives with one hand it takes away with the other...sure dependency has advantages...until the "other hand" (ie global currency reset) takes it away. Those who are the most dependent will be the first lining up for Soylent Green....and will also be the first to "make" it.
Next question.. are there 93 million jobs in the US? Where are they? Oh, that's right.. they're in Asia so the near slave labor costs can make wall street richer.
Sweet Jaysus, OutaTime43, you're inserting logic into this discussion, and Rand Paul blowjobbers cannot deal with such a thing!
The BS propoganda always avoids this. Many people want to work but cannot find a decent job. The option is work for $11 to $15 (if very lucky) and have nothing while looking on the side or hold out and look for something decent full time. My observation is that it is easier/less stressful for the wives to do so while the husband works. But if the husband does so while the wife works he gets depressed quicker.
These articles put the blame on the workers but they did not make the corp/govt decisions that sent the jobs away. The new trade agreement will be the final blow.
And the white collar workers used to (still do) maintain an aloof attitude. But now they are getting the same treatment to some extent.
Not only have the jobs gone overseas, the good blue collar jobs are either gone or now the pay is back to the $11 - $15 range. The blue collar trades have been caught flat footed at how well the illegals have been able to take skilled blue collar jobs. First they were the grunt workers (and the small company fired the nonillegals to lower the pay scale), then they actually became the subcontractors. All the home framing crews/subcontractors for example are illegals around here.
Masters don't work. Slaves work.
Alphas don't work. Bitches work. Alphas lounge around all day while the bitches hunt and bring them food.
If you work you're a bitch.
if you post that again i will have no choice but to report you to the bureau of redundant bureaus
Yeah, yeah. We get it; you think you're a fucking alpha.
"Alphas lounge around all day...."
Until a new Alpha takes them out.
We all know the answer to the question of this article...Please allow me to change the subject, in hopes that maybe tyler will read this and follow through.... I had a coin dealer call me today asking me to sell him back 25 buffalo silver blah blah...50 cents over spot... It got me thinking so I called several different high end coin dealers and they have no silver...It would be interesting if people who read and post here did the same thing and called coin dealers and found what I found...I am in northwest...... thanks
My dealer is out of many common products. Only RCM 100 oz bars - no JM. Canadian Junk (80%) is gone, and US Junk has 30% premium over spot.
It's dejavu all over again.
thanks blu....and for everyone else I wont make a habit of changing the subject of the article.
my dealer sold everything back when it hit $50/oz so he doesn't have any inventory either. special order only.
He's probably loading up again.
Why bother calling when you can just look online and see this has been taking place for the last month or so. A lot of near spot, gold and silver is not available to buy.
Remember when the husband worked and the wife didn't? Probably still quite a bit of that. If my spouse made $200K I sure wouldn't be a wafe slave. And early retirement, people in college, etc. may be 'working age'.
Yeah, the good 'ole '90s.
We just Galt'ed my wife it wasn't worth the $15/hr so I asked her to help me with my work that takes about 60 hours a week now.
They met John Galt
and/or
They are receiving government aid and don't want to jeopordize it
its to much work to work! get a student loan buy a new chevy and move in with ma and pa! Murrica!
This is the Darwin effect, only the fittest workers (and jobs they do) survived. The rest... live off of them.
Gallup survey 1000 (government) whores.
Gallup is disinfo. Pew is disinfo. Go read their surveys.
There are no jobs!
In my locale, in 2008, the local paper had over 60 pages of job ads on Sunday.
From 2009 through now, it's more like 6, with twice as many ads, and the pets section thrown in.
The jobs that ARE there, don't ask for college degree or 1-2 years experience, they ask for 5-10, and even if you have that, you are competing with 40 other people who applied for the job.
Duh.
Maybe it's because most of the decent jobs have been shipped overseas and what remains pays minimum wage.
Yes, the amount of jobs shipped overseas for cheap labor is something like 12-20 million starting in the late 80s up to the present time.
1.The Gallup poll should be viewed very skeptically if they only used a very small sampling of 1,000 respondents.
2. Geographically speaking, where were these respondents located?
3. Under what conditions were responses logged? In the privacy of their home; at the office where they could be pressured by colleagues/bosses in answering the questions?
4. Nearly 94 Million don't work because they "don't have to?" The welfare system was obliterated under Bill Clinton. Only the very poor are provided some form of subsistance; if that.
"The welfare system was obliterated under Bill Clinton. Only the very poor are provided some form of subsistance; if that."
I don't think so.
So, is one considered "very poor" renting a $1500 section 8 house for $200 a month, $1300 paid by the taxpayer AND Medicaid for the whole family, paid for by the taxpayer, AND food credit card for $700 a month for family of 5 paid for by taxpayer, And obama phone with $200 a month paid for by the taxpayer, electric bill paid for by electric company written off against earnings so no tax, again subsidized by taxpayer. All on a waitress job and off the grid illegal immigrant mechanic that just bought a housefull of new furniture, for cash. You should meet my former neighbors. Times are tough.
The existing welfare system under Bill "is" Clinton was merely renamed, like the affordable care act.
Research, please, on your assertions.
This isn't the 60s or 70s when subsidized housing was developed. Even if 10% of the 94 million not working, were in subsidized housing, that would constitute millions of housing units that simply do not exist.
The real thievery going on in America is not by the poor, but the corporations and bankers.They have every privilege between banking their money in offshore institutions, massive tax write-offs, and illegal use of their money.
End result:
child poverty is 22%; the highest in any industrialized nation.
The US division between the wealthy vs everyone else is the *highest* throughout the industrialized west.
You should target your angst against the real perpetrators of fraud, thievery, and massive personal enrichment.
Why should anchor babies spawned by illegal aliens NOT be in poverty? On what grounds? America is 30% illegal aliens at this point and there is NO REASON to believe that an illiterate 5th grade educated Hispanic should EVER have the same income or standard of living as a U.S. citizen born and educated in the country.
Not against what you are saying, but a percentage of all new construction apartments/condos is for low income, at least here in Los Angeles. Its just not as obvious because of how that's staggered from building to building. I need to ask around what the percentage is.
You forgot free cable because all of us that pay for cable pay a tax to provide cable for the poor.
Look sonny, the poor need their wall-to-wall indoctrination just like everybody else. In the developing world, the rulers will put solar panels in the remote villages so the poor can plug their TVs in.
Answer: Why would anybody want to work in a shit job for shit pay>
Exercise?
i think it comes down to the fact that people will stomach working at a job that's remarkably unfulfilling, or working at a job that holds no prospects for advancement, but asking them to do both at the same time is a tall order. add onto that the fact that they may be asked to actually fight tooth and nail over competitors for such a job, and you can see why they drop out
IBM is replacing US workers with H1B workers brought over from India at 1/3 the US worker's salary. They don't ship all the jobs to India because IBM's customers have been burned badly with Indian screw-ups and have contracted with IBM to provide only "American-based" labor. So IBM brings India to America. You could not make this stuff up.
These days, most jobs are part-time jobs. Anyone with part-time work can be considered underemployed, which is a subset of unemployment.
Therefore, anyone who is underemployed can be considered to be not in the workforce.
But, when the government needs to show a lower rate of unemployment, the underemployed are counted as part of the employed. It's a kind of on-again/off-again formula much like mark-to-model, the pricing method used by bankers for no-doc CDOs.
And, just as the futures market for precious metals -- aka, the COMEX -- fails to show true supply and demand, so too do government employment statistics fail to show the true employment rate in the U.S.
Lastly, there's a well-known government/corporate fascist trick that's used to demonize the masses who have been stripped of full-time employment: Call them lazy and say that they simply don't want to work. Repeatedly use the much-dreaded word, welfare, and tell everyone that some folks prefer handouts to work.
The opposite is invariably true: It is corporations that receive true welfare in the form of tax breaks, H-1B visa allowances for cheap labor, free trade agreements for offshoring manufacturing to cheap-labor nations, and the elimination of protective labor laws.
Fascism has arrived in America in the form of big corporations that eliminate jobs and then demonize Americans for not being able to get the very jobs that have been eliminated. Orwell would be awestruck!
Let's not forget all of the government employees who did shit bureaucratic shuffling until they were 50 and now get paid 50-100,000 a year. Not much compared to corporate welfare, but still.
And then some of them go onto forced early retirement, because the govt. office can't afford to keep them on. And because that office can't find someone to fill that position, they come back in as a contractor being paid even more. Never heard anyone talk about this before.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article4512251...
There are people that get $45,000 in benefits at the zero end of the scale?
If you have no pride, you'd be better to take it and hustle doing "fill in the blank" for cash on the side?
A lot of the unemployed use the welfare bennies as a floor income, then they work off the books, or engage in illegal activities like drug sales, sale of stolen goods, prostitution, whatever, for more income on top of the government goodies.
Also, auto repair, house cleaning, lawn care, etc.
exotic dancing
good old fashioned lowdown filthy country fcuking
Because work without purpose and work that entails becoming a host for some parasite sucks.
the wage slave is smarter than we think...
Why would Zero Hedge ask stupid question? These people have not opted out of looking for work. They are simply not counted by the criminals creating the numbers. The unemployment rate inside the United States is at 30%. Case closed!
Firstly, You need to have enough "quality" (living wage) jobs... America doesn't. Not for the number of people living and immigrating here by the day. The incentive to work used to be the American Dream, ie.. upward mobility and a career, life, house HOPE and Future etc.. that dream was killed off. what we are left with is stagnation and endless low pay misery index inducing "employment" for the majority. A working class that is forced to LIVE TO WORK rather than WORKING TO LIVE! BIG DIFFERENCE- A class that is now becoming a massive serfdom! All part of the plan though. Their plan. If Americans want the American Dream back they are going to have to flip the script on these fascist controllers and fight back for it. Otherwise, It's going to be McJobs and welfare for all! For the rest of our lives and future generations.
Well, Nick, what part of starve the fucking beast don't you understand?
Frankly, I'm appalled that there are so many that are still willing to participate in this poor excuse for a dog and pony show.
A civilization that is degenerate and literally actively trying to genocide your people from this Earth.
Yes, we're all quick to sign up to work hard to support a culture that has told us we're evil and responsible for everything wrong in the world from the day we were born.
Feminism (all women are now whores). Women's sexual liberation (all women are now whores). Women's rights (all women are now whores). Easy divorce that favors the woman and crushes the man (all women are now whores). White guilt. Social Justice Warriors. Gay rights. Environmentalism. "White people shouldn't breed." "White people should kill themselves." "Pay taxes to support Syrian and African refugees that have 20 children per woman." "Overpopulation is destroying the environment." "We only mean there are too many white people."
Fuck your civilization. Paraphrasing Fight Club: I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every white woman that wouldn't breed to save her species. I wanted to open the dump valves on oil tankers to flood all those beaches I'd never see.
Cuz they keep moving my cheese !!!!!!!
Every dream I chase eventually dies.
At some point u say.....
I am 40 years old.
Why bother????
This article tells me that a single mom actually needs $69,000 before taxes per year for a decent existence. That equates to about $33 per hour. Employers need to pay up or keep funding the entitlement machine. It really is that simple.
I actually saw the government blurb for how much a single mother of four (yes, 4) would get if all her free shit was totalled up. It was 69K
No one wants to hire a GAPER!
Why do you think they cannot find work?
Stupid fucking article.
To stupid?
Working is stressful and you mostly have to deal with disagreeable people. Why bother when there are other options?
Didn't read the article.
Point 1: All work is slavery
Point 2: You can never be free
Point 3: Pensions are gone so retirement is gone, you will NEVER be free (work until you die)
Point 4: All your money goes to support "poor minority" dindunuffins that hate you and will literally murder you in the streets of America just for being white
Point 5: See 4 prior points
I won't give you a down-arrow, because you are obviously talking about normal jobs and normal businesses within the system.
But the fact is, you and everyone else does have the option to escape the system. I'm not saying that is easy, but it is possible. I did so over 3 years ago all alone, without help, without collaborators. It required 95% of my life savings and about one year of fairly constant intensive work to pull off, but I did it. Now I am literally 100% self-sufficient, and live 125km from the nearest human being in the extreme boonies, in what is to me a paradise (my tastes are weird). While I do still buy a few spices (down to four at this point), I definitely don't need them to survive or be happy, and within a year I'll be harvesting more than I need (quantities required are tiny). I can literally live the rest of my life with zero impact if ever human being on planet earth vanished. Well, except I wouldn't be able to waste my time posting on ZH any more, but that would be an improvement.
I'm not sure why so many people remain inside the system. They don't have to. And they don't have to escape alone (small collaborations would be even easier financially speaking, albeit a bit like herding cats). To be sure, if hundreds of millions of people started disconnecting like this, the predators-that-be would likely respond... if they could find an effective way.
Just wanted to mention the other option.
For all practical purposes, I am free.
So, how's the dating scene working out for ya
Good one. Not so well. But I expected that. OTOH, several guys here in ZH have proposed we hook up, so maybe I shouldn't say that.
Seems a lot more guys are willing to move into an already functioning self-sufficient situation than are willing to invest the time, effort and resources to create one. That's not surprising though, is it?
The only problem with you, Han, is you shoot first!
Hahaha. Sorry. Just couldn't resist.
Yea, it's possible to achieve a lot of seemingly insurmountable goals with proper planning, foresight, and enough money. It's good that you achieved your goals.
The idea of working a small farm does seem more appealing than a corporate office job to many people. The money you receive for the corporate job may be far more valuable than the product of work done around a small farm but money is an abstract concept and I think most humans would rather see crops growing, fences mended, etc. and would find that more rewarding. This is also why construction workers have extremely high job satisfaction - they build real things.
BTW, I don't have or need anything like a "farm" to feed myself. More like several trees and a couple gardens. Plus a large area where my chickens wander around.
I only spend about 10% of my time to grow and raise everything I consume. To "feed self" is a huge difference from "growing enough to earn a good income".
Until I looked into what it takes to feed one person (self), I had no idea so little space and effort could be involved. I did spend a bit more (maybe 20%) to make my setup "cleaner and more efficient to operate", but that was more than worth it.
BTW, to give a sense of feasibility, my life savings was about $400K, and most was consumed by that project. However, this includes my brand-new, high-tech, ultra-efficient, carbon-fibre airplane, which is now my only transportation. For my location, which is purposely not accessible by land vehicle, this was a relevant expense. But this also means others can do the same with $300K savings or less.
double post.
...because everything is great and dandy. Great greekovery.
I'm more than happy to reenter the workforce once half breed and his tranny wookie have left the White House as well as the country.
Once Obama leave everything will be fixed. /sarcasm.
Can't wait for the next schmuck to run the ship further aground.
How about working under the table, so to speak, so as not to financially support a system that doesn't support life? I don't think I'm alone on that one.
Why is there so much anger/hatred in America ? Where are the moral 'leaders' ? Personally - I think it has something to do with these 'news' items that seem to have a life as short as 24 hours, that pinch nerves and are just left to fester.
The isolation of the modern man and the destruction of not only the community but of the family itself has led to the present state of affairs. People are groundless and adrift without any guidance in this world. Add in the adoption of atheist secular society and values and you literally have the recipe for the downfall of every fallen civilization in the history of man kind.
The only job of management is to fuck you as hard as they can without you noticing the ripping, tearing, and bleeding. Middle management to corporate executive level, they are all rapists of the worker. That is their only job, to rape you. Just so you know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx9b3tQU5IA
Not sure which will be the dominant social group after the downfall of Western Civilization, but Management, the current dominant group, will likely be supplanted like those groups that preceded it: lords, bourgeoisie, beaurocrats, etc.
In terms of workplace value, they are almost purely distilled waste. Managers of large corporataions have monopolized all profit sharing, via bonuses, through the implied rationale that that most profit growth is their doing. But, in reality they have taken credit for the inflationary economic expansion resulting from pervasive low interest rates. I look forward to their demise when real value creation, not financial engineering, becomes the primary mode for generatng income during the approaching deflationary environment.
Weren't the "Lords" of old really just politically minded managers that didn't mind getting their hands bloody (or sending people to do their dirty work)?
Choose to????? NO! There are NO jobs!
Yeah I noticed he seems to use some official bullet or definition.
"This isthe painful reality in America: for increasingly more it is now more lucrative - in the form of actual disposable income - to sit, do nothing, and collect various welfare entitlements, than to work."
But
- More Businesses closed than opened
- More Young Businesses don't make it these days
- Business Dynamism in the USA has Decreased Steeply
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/05/22-decline-business-dyn...
http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-troubling-decline-of-american-bu...
http://www.kauffman.org/~/media/kauffman_org/research%20reports%20and%20...
econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/DHJM_6_2_2014.pdf
https://www.aei.org/publication/declining-us-business-dynamism-its-for-r...
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/beyond-bls/business-dynamism-is-it-real...
https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/declining-business-dynamism-what-does-it-...
In 1970 i made 2.85 an hour as a dishwasher. Put that in a inflation calculator and in 2015 the same value is 17.75.
I doubt there are many dishwashers today above 9.00 an hour. I was able to attend community college, share an apartment, drive a 65 mustang working 30 hours a week. Wages have not kept with the cost of living at all. That said
the goverment has no right to tell employers how much to pay a worker. If its not enough try to improve yourself. Wages in my area at the box stores, food stores, fast food are 8 to 11 an hour. No wonder kids are in the parents basements. It's tough out there.
Nice way to put a 'spin' on the stats by showing the lazy couch guy...
Unfortunately, it is a false impression. Designed to stir the ire of the people slaving for a paycheck and worried about their jobs...Why, LOOK at that lazy fucker! He's slacking at YOUR expense! Unless TPTB can get you ALL out earning payroll, this economy is not going to be able to support all their various "skim" operations.
Yeah, well fuck THEM.
I'm tired of supporting parasites and leeches...(and I'm NOT talking about Otis on the couch with the remote..) "Otis", for all his worthless ways, isn't the one taking a fucking THIRD of my paycheck before I even get the money!
We are working, trust me. Just not on their terms. And that's how we LIKE it.
Xscream. In 1973 I made 1.60 an hour minimum wage as a burger flipper while still in high school. In 1974 I got a job as an apprentice meat cutter for 4.25. So you were either an extremely overpaid dishwasher or your folks owned the business.
I admit i made good money in that retaurant. In 1971 got a job at safeway for 3.25. I was near washington DC wages have always been better there cheers
There are two ways to increase the gap between wages and jobless benefits. Cut the jobless benefits or increase wages. Of course the oligarchs prefer the former. Because they think an useless job like lettuce picking deserves $8/hr while jobs in financial engineering deserves $10,000/hr because a society can survive without food but cannot survive without say CDO or spoofing or quote stuffing etc.
Heck of a lot of data, then the conclusion has no real data backing it up. Surely there is data for the writers conclusion?
I pulled data before to see the Percent of people that work in other Countries and it appears US Percentage is pretty close.
I just don't know the differences in how they collect the data and if the definitions are the same for all countries.
The problem is Americans Expect to Work, Have a Good Work Ethic, have a High Value on Work, Many have their Identities through their work, Men are still judged by weather they work and what their job is, and today it doesn't matter if you are 16 years old, man or woman our Society Values you by your Work Status.
Men's Issues: We are creating some kind of schizophrenia in our Men.
So we are all in Agreement? We are going to do something when the numbers Reach 100 Million working aged Americans NOT Working.
Sarc.
The politicians are pushing for more H1Bs and illegal amnesty to push more Americans out of the workforce. Then there's corporations moving out of the US and robots.
More and more Social Security Disability, welfare and food stamps.
Higher taxes and bigger government to keep more of the new illegals employed.
Maybe because there are no fucking jobs, Sherlock.