Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

blogs.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 72 posts

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#31

Post by dcosson »

discardorama wrote: post #22

I have a neighbor who used to work as a landscaper. The money was decent (in SF); his specialty was masonry. Then a couple of years ago, he decided to drop out. Claimed he had MS and started getting SSDI checks of about $2K/month (I think). After he dropped out, I've seen him lift 100lb stones; frequently, he'll drive down to Arizona for fishing trips with buddies; and recently, he drove cross-country to Georgia for…

> if he can do all these activities, he can damn well work

Yeah, screw him for living life to the fullest while he still can, instead of continuing heavy physical labor every day until he's in a wheelchair.

In all seriousness, it's not like disease is completely black & white and there's always an obvious day up until which you can easily work. Just the mental & emotional drain of coping with something like this must make it incredibly difficult to get up every day and get excited about working.

If our economy can't provide a safety net for people in tough in-between situations like this, then let's make our systems more efficient rather than force a bunch of people to do something they don't feel up for just because it's a job.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#32

Post by [deleted] »

oconnore wrote: post #29

But the "in the labor force" category includes people who are forced to work part time so they don't collect benefits, get bumped from job to job, have unreliable hours, make less than the cost of living, etc. The graph should be split: - Has a reliable full time job with benefits - Has a minimum wage job, or is a part time employee/contractor making less than $20-30k a year.

[deleted]

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#33

Post by michaelZejoop »

6stringmerc wrote: post #25

Huh, I've seen consistent material over at Zero Hedge[1] indicating that since 2007 the cohort that has made the most job gains is over the age of 55. " ...while the elderly workers in the US have risen by a whopping 7.4 million since the start of the Depression in December 2007, workers aged 25-54 are down 4 million! " As shown in this chart: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im... If there's…

What is the nature and quality of the jobs these post 55 people have taken. Do the jobs they land in compare favorably with the jobs they were displaced from? Did they go from professional jobs to service sector jobs? This distinction is important. As a forced-into-early-retirement, former aerospace engineer, I am curious, and I will check your links later.

As for my future, I am trying to create my own asset/company and I don't see myself reentering the workforce as an hourly wage earner again.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#34

Post by e40 »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #30
michaelZejoop wrote: post #28

There is a portion of the spectrum that seems like it is in the "wants a job, but is not looking" category that is not properly represented. I am in sub-category of "wants a gainful future (after being laid off - essentially forced into early retirement - from a long aerospace career) but is not looking for a job (either in the sector I left, or in the service sector). Aerospace is notorious for ageism, and I have no…

Aerospace is ageist towards the older people? That's interesting, I'd think that experience would be the most important factor in that space.

It's because that industry uses a lot of old (software) technology and older folks tend to know it best.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#35

Post by _delirium »

oconnore wrote: post #29

But the "in the labor force" category includes people who are forced to work part time so they don't collect benefits, get bumped from job to job, have unreliable hours, make less than the cost of living, etc. The graph should be split: - Has a reliable full time job with benefits - Has a minimum wage job, or is a part time employee/contractor making less than $20-30k a year.

It's not shown here, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics does further break down workers into full-time, voluntarily part-time, and involuntarily part-time [1]. Numbers for part-time workers below are for September 2015.

    Part-time for economic reasons (6 million)
        Slack work or business conditions (3.6 million)
        Could only find part-time work (2.1 million)
        Other (0.3 million)
    Part-time for noneconomic reasons (20 million)
[1] http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#36

Post by nsheth17 »

The impact of this is going to become so obvious when interest rates start going up.

Let me explain. Ultimately, how much money the workforce is making matters to consumer spending. People may be ok not having a job, because they have some way to stay at their standard of living. But unless a bunch of them are sitting on family trusts, it also means they don't have a growing amount of money to spend.

Yet consumer spending has been growing steadily for the last 5 years. How can that be? The likely scenario is really cheap debt. The kind that disappears when interet rates aren't basically zero anymore.

We've shoved a lot of stuff under the "free money" carpet. When the Fed bumps up the interest rates, all those spiders are going to come out to play.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#37

Post by intopieces »

mynameishere wrote: post #20
intopieces wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>'disabled' is a code word for long-term un-employable. Correct. This is the legacy of the Clinton era 'welfare to work' program: we moved people from welfare to disability. This will grow as automation takes hold of ever more industries. "Disability" is the U.S.'s first step toward guaranteed minimum income or a negative income tax. We will never have enough jobs for everyone in America, so we need to figure out wha…

It really has nothing to do with "keeping the economy going". The purpose of "disability" insurance is just like that of Social Security originally--keeping people from destitution and poorhouses. It's not a good thing, but an unavoidable thing.

>It really has nothing to do with "keeping the economy going".

Not sure what you mean. When we give poor people money, they spend it. That's good for the economy. Welfare and disability are definitely good things.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#38

Post by XorNot »

dcosson wrote: post #31
discardorama wrote: post #22

I have a neighbor who used to work as a landscaper. The money was decent (in SF); his specialty was masonry. Then a couple of years ago, he decided to drop out. Claimed he had MS and started getting SSDI checks of about $2K/month (I think). After he dropped out, I've seen him lift 100lb stones; frequently, he'll drive down to Arizona for fishing trips with buddies; and recently, he drove cross-country to Georgia for…

> if he can do all these activities, he can damn well work Yeah, screw him for living life to the fullest while he still can, instead of continuing heavy physical labor every day until he's in a wheelchair. In all seriousness, it's not like disease is completely black & white and there's always an obvious day up until which you can easily work. Just the mental & emotional drain of coping with something like this must…

Also that humans are terrible statisticians and tend to only record notable events, not all events. The guy could easily spend 80+% of his life unable to do those things, and you'd still say "pull his disability" based on the few good days he had.

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#39

Post by TallGuyShort »

cryoshon wrote: post #27

This article doesn't really delve into the percentage of the population that "doesn't look, but still wants a job". This population is the most important one as far as generational wealth and health is concerned; retiring and disabled boomers are to be expected. Part of this is an intentional misrepresentation of the employment numbers. In order to be counted as "unemployed" you must first have had stable "employment…

I think the whole point of the article was that we need to know more about that percentage of the population that "doesn't look, but still wants a job", because dismissive explanations are insufficient.

Does anyone on HN have suggestions of possible explanations for some of that percentage? I don't understand it. Is it people who wanted a job, but gave up looking? Other situations that would fall into this category other than simply "lazy"?

Re: What We Know About the 92M Americans Who Aren’t in the Labor Force

#40

Post by michaelZejoop »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #30
michaelZejoop wrote: post #28

There is a portion of the spectrum that seems like it is in the "wants a job, but is not looking" category that is not properly represented. I am in sub-category of "wants a gainful future (after being laid off - essentially forced into early retirement - from a long aerospace career) but is not looking for a job (either in the sector I left, or in the service sector). Aerospace is notorious for ageism, and I have no…

Aerospace is ageist towards the older people? That's interesting, I'd think that experience would be the most important factor in that space.

Once you top out the salary range, and are close to 55 (the earliest age for reduced retirement benefits) they look for ways to shed you. It happened to me, and many other colleagues. I have worked on a lot of great projects such as B2 Bomber, Space Shuttle, UAV Global Hawk and many satellite programs. That does not matter; once you hit the age/wage criteria, you better have great connections or you could easily see yourself filing for unemployment.
Post reply on HN