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Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

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Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#81
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why we need universal healthcare in the US It’s something every worker should be fighting tooth and nail for It would go a long way to breaking up the neoliberal corporate hegemony Sadly, and regardless of education and political leanings, Americans seem in love with a fictional account of the countries history. That it was all great 50 yrs ago without universal healthcare (when they were kids and not really…

> Americans seem in love with a fictional account of the countries history. This shouldn't be about historical narratives or ideology, that's largely why public health insurance is dead-on-arrival in US politics. Both sides are terribly ideological about it and unrealistic as a result. The healthcare industry is already the most heavily regulated of all industries in the US. Saying it's been held back from government…

> Rather it should be sold as an exception to the rule.

I've said this before: Society has already made it's choice. Society doesn't want people dying in the streets. Once you've made that decision, universal healthcare in some form or another just flows from that. The US has a form of it right now, it's just extremely perverse and expensive.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#82
post #20
post #2

> “We find that 94% of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative work category,” said Krueger. “And over 60% was due to the [the rise] of independent contractors, freelancers and contract company workers.” So, not exactly temp workers, but contract workers who require less overhead and are easy to fire.

Has the increasing cost of health insurance motivated employers to start using more contract workers?

Yes, but they were doing this 10 years ago, so the recent increases in costs are probably only accelerating an existing trend.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#83
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Americans seem in love with a fictional account of the countries history. This shouldn't be about historical narratives or ideology, that's largely why public health insurance is dead-on-arrival in US politics. Both sides are terribly ideological about it and unrealistic as a result. The healthcare industry is already the most heavily regulated of all industries in the US. Saying it's been held back from government…

> Rather it should be sold as an exception to the rule. I've said this before: Society has already made it's choice. Society doesn't want people dying in the streets. Once you've made that decision, universal healthcare in some form or another just flows from that. The US has a form of it right now, it's just extremely perverse and expensive.

[deleted]

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#84
post #7

Another powerful demographic force in the USA is the number of men who are ex-convicts: ""Few of us today are aware of the staggering size of this group. In a forthcoming study, Sarah Shannon, a sociologist at the University of Georgia, and five colleagues estimate that America’s criminal class (people with a felony conviction or prison time in their background) roughly quadrupled between 1980 and 2010 — from 5 milli…

> population to have topped 23 million by now

Assuming an error rate of about 4%, this means that about 900,000 Americans have been wrongly convicted -- about the population of San Francisco.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and these gigs aren't the best thing around for sure. But I wonder where people would be without them, you know? Would it be huge unemployment? Or would conventional employees be the result?

They would probably be unemployed. Now we have people who are barely employed. They are paid just enough to keep them from banding together and demanding change. If they were unemployed then they'd have a lot more incentive to do something. Now they are trapped trying to keep their heads above water. Don't think this isn't on purpose. Every last dime is getting squeezed out.

Incompetence is just as plausible as conspiracy.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#86
post #19
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talk like this is a bad thing, but I don't get it. If working for your employer became a negative ROI, you'd quit your job. If employing somebody becomes a negative ROI, I don't see why it shouldn't be equally easy to stop employing them. As long as the relationship is mutually beneficial, neither party will terminate it.

Most people can’t just quit their job, they have monthly recurring bills that must be paid. Those of us that work in tech are quite fortunate to have realistic alternatives. However, even many of us are restricted due to location, and before it’s mentioned, yeah we could move but we have families with children in school and spouses who have non tech careers. Moving is expensive. The employment system in the US, espec…

>The employment system in the US, especially in states like mine, ensure that employers have persistent power over employees under the guise of “right to work”.

I think you mean "at-will employment". All American states have that. "Right to work" laws refer to laws banning union contracts from creating "closed shops".

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#87
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need more than universal healthcare; we need straight-up universal care. The idea should be that periods of unemployment or uncertainty are not terrifying gray areas for an average person. If people felt comfortable that they would have support for finding better pastures from a shitty job, they'd be more likely to seek them. If they felt more confident that they had prospects after a layoff, they'd be more likely…

We need guaranteed minimum income, its the most freedom enhancing way of solving these problems. Give people cash, give them financial literacy training, the rest ought to work out okay.

This solution also sidesteps the atrocious incentives of unemployment payouts.

You might be making more from unemployment than by working a min wage job so why take it?

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#88
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make all of the correlations to historical trendlines you like but this is a new phenomenon with plenty of benefits to both the customer and workers compared to previous systems, which is why it exists, almost entirely as a result of technology. It's been disruptive and sudden largely due to a complete lack of innovation within existing systems, a possibly inherently feature of previous models. Not driven by…

The intentions of “nerds” are entirely irrelevant if the outcome is widespread economic tenuousness. Sweeping aside history because you’re arriving at the same kind of poverty by novel means is quite the hand wave. No one disagrees that how we address these problems is going to be different from times past, but to pretend that things like class relations are ahistorical defies any notion of reasoned consideration. An…

> The intentions of “nerds” are entirely irrelevant if the outcome is widespread economic tenuousness.

Not if we're talking about history and that's very much the history being written in popular culture.

You specifically said that it's not a "natural evolution" because a similar thing happened in the past during the gilded age. And instead it's some sort of regression back to that?

My entire comment counters that sentiment. The context and motivations are very different this time around, even if some (keyword is some) of the outcomes are similar. And when context and motivation are different then the effective solutions are going to also be very different.

> but to pretend that things like class relations are ahistorical

The typical academic writing where "class relations" are the central worldview tends to push more and more economic control to centralization and socialist ideology.

If I missed an evolution in the solutions offered there (ie, deprioritizing property and tort law in favour of more unions, centralization, agency oversight, laws that only apply to full-time employee, etc), then I'll happily admit I'm wrong to dismiss it as more of the same...

So either you want to cripple the modern industrial evolution, ala Uber in London, to go back to the previous model or your think those same systems will somehow work in the new era. All I'm saying is the previous generations solutions are a poor fix for this problem. And buying into 'working class vs everyone else' worldview and the socialist breadbasket that comes with that, rather than strengthening the individual's ability to not be exploited within the context of a decentralized capitalist system through stronger courts protecting contractors and modernized government services, is a misguided and nostalgic proposition.

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#89
post #69

It's unsurprising considering the increasing costs and regulations imposed upon full time workers. When you see figures on what workers are paid, the figure should be "total compensation", which includes things like benefits, FICA taxes paid on behalf of the employee, etc. These can easily add 50% to the compensation. Showing just the wage is disingenuous.

Can you give some examples of what these costs are and how they've increased since 2005 (or 1995)?

1. Employer's FICA contribution

2. Vacation paid time off

3. Sick leave paid time off

4. Maternity/Paternity paid time off

5. health care benefits

6. free/subsidized lunch

7. free bus passes

8. 401k employer matching contribution

9. employee stock purchase plans

10. stock options

11. bonuses

12. profit sharing / commissions

13. retirement plan

14. education tuition help

15. random other things like gym memberships, legal help, etc.

Here's some of Boeing's benefits:

http://www.boeing.com/careers/benefits/united-states-benefit...

Some statistics:

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecec.nr0.htm

Re: Most US jobs created since 2005 are not conventional full-time work

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly why we need universal healthcare in the US It’s something every worker should be fighting tooth and nail for It would go a long way to breaking up the neoliberal corporate hegemony Sadly, and regardless of education and political leanings, Americans seem in love with a fictional account of the countries history. That it was all great 50 yrs ago without universal healthcare (when they were kids and not really…

We need more than universal healthcare; we need straight-up universal care. The idea should be that periods of unemployment or uncertainty are not terrifying gray areas for an average person. If people felt comfortable that they would have support for finding better pastures from a shitty job, they'd be more likely to seek them. If they felt more confident that they had prospects after a layoff, they'd be more likely…

> How about a party for workers?

Possible principles for a workers party:

- maximize after-rent and after-tax disposable income of workers

- shift all taxes off of wages from labor and onto ground rent from private enclosures of land and natural resources

- support a universal public savings account for all citizen residents over 20

- democratically divide and deposit all surplus natural resource rents directly into the universal savings accounts

- have the Federal Reserve conduct monetary policy by setting the interest rate on the universal citizen savings accounts, rather than by buying up assets from investors

This should increase the disposable income for a super-majority of workers by decreasing rent, making acquiring a house more affordable, making land for new small farms and businesses near competitive markets easier to obtain, increasing private savings to ensure workers have access to a large-runway of cash and high bargaining power while in between jobs, reducing the severity of economic depressions and recessions created by idle land speculation, and by directing capital flows away from mortgages and mortgage-backed assets and into productive businesses which will actually increase the demand for labor and raise wages.

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