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One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

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Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#21

Post by prayag »

seanmcq wrote: post #13
sliverstorm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way? Not that I disagree, but please expand on your statement?

Sure. It's been more than a generation since women started making more money than men in some households due to increases in equality between the sexes. The phrasing and positioning used implies that a stay-at-home dad is something that we should be reacting to as an economic problem. In other words, it required the assumption that men are the proper breadwinners in heterosexual households.

I don't know why you are being downvoted. This is absolutely correct.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#22

Post by webwright »

I'd wager close to another 1 in 5 works for the government directly or indirectly. And I assume we're not including retirees in any of this.

The ratio of retirees to workers continues to get worse. In the 1940s, there were 42 workers per retiree. Today there are 3.3 workers per retiree.

So you have a shrinking group of people who are actually producing (total workforce minus unemployed, minus goverment workers, minus workers who exist due to government purchasing) and a growing number of people who get a chunk of that production.

This does not end well.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#23

Post by ars »

glimcat wrote: post #6
pedalpete wrote: post #3

I'm surprised the figure quoted in the opening paragraph would include incarcerated men along with those on disability and unemployed. According to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the US, and 93% are male, so that's 2.1 million men. The article also says 4.3 Americans have been jobless for months if not years. If this number includes t…

Simple arithmetic says yes, there would be more competition for jobs. But you're talking about a dramatic change in US public policy. A first-order approximation is not sufficient, and higher-order approximations depend heavily on what guesses you want to make about the social outcomes.

> Simple arithmetic says yes, there would be more competition for jobs.

But there would also be more demand since those same people would also be buying things.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#24

Post by ars »

Hyena wrote: post #11
cageface wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, to put it another way, companies just don't need as many unskilled workers as they did a decade ago.

All companies need unskilled people: you train them so your business can expand. That's where global supply chain managers and database programmers came from originally--and in many cases still do--they don't fall from the clouds. The issue is that a lot of these companies are only expanding overseas, so they're not really ready to hire and train people. Much of their profits come from cutting back on their junior st…

> you train them so your business can expand

That only worked when people stayed with a single employer for years. These days they would take the training and get a better job somewhere else.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#25

Post by bergie »

ck2 wrote: post #16

So if a tool made in China cost $20 and the same kind made in USA cost $100, which one do you think people are going to buy at the hardware store (even if the one made in China lasts 1/4th as long). What if there was a tax that made the one made in China cost $70 - you think the one made in USA would have a fighting chance? I think so. It would create a whole bunch of jobs because there would be less impulse to move…

That would be quite funny, given that USA has spent much of th last hundred years promoting free trade and trying to force other countries to open up their economies for foreign imports.

And I don't think a protectionist customs scheme is what you want. It could boost local manufacturing on a short them, but eventually the lack of incentive makes them fall behind. Then you have whole industries producing stuff nobody would buy, except for the fact that anything imported is way overpriced.

USA has a quite large domestic economy, but it still probably isn't enough for the companies there if they are not competitive elsewhere.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#26

Post by Nate75Sanders »

daimyoyo wrote: post #14

I have experienced this first hand. I have applied for a LOT of jobs in the last 2 years and one of two things happens: They don't talk to me, or they do, and I sail past the preliminary interviews only to get rejected after the background check. I am not a felon, a terrorist, or a scourge of society. I have bad credit.(Funny/sad aside, I once went to Best Buy to see if I could get a card to finance something with th…

Forgive my ignorance:

What jobs are asking you your credit score?

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#27

Post by ericd »

Hyena wrote: post #11
cageface wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, to put it another way, companies just don't need as many unskilled workers as they did a decade ago.

All companies need unskilled people: you train them so your business can expand. That's where global supply chain managers and database programmers came from originally--and in many cases still do--they don't fall from the clouds. The issue is that a lot of these companies are only expanding overseas, so they're not really ready to hire and train people. Much of their profits come from cutting back on their junior st…

I don't want to hire a DBA that's never touched a DB before at this point, though - since that field has been around for a while now, there's now a lot of signaling where before noone could distinguish themselves. Those who have the aptitude and/or are motivated/interested in the field have made themselves into DBAs or something similar that could easily transition on their own time. I don't want to hire a warm body that's looking to work just for a paycheck. If you've never bothered to learn to program, I don't want to hire you as a programmer, even if I think I could train you.

There is a shortage of employable people in the US, and a glut of unemployable. To me, this means that our culture and our education system need a lot of help.

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#28

Post by intended »

glimcat wrote: post #4

Okay, it sucks. What do you want me to do about it? There are not many obvious sustainable solutions that don't involve the government suddenly deciding to reallocate pork funding to major public works or otherwise taking unlikely actions which would dramatically alter the current climate. Meanwhile, it's a good time to start a business. It probably won't create many jobs and it might not take off, but at a minimum i…

Hmm, just had a thought - wouldnt it make sense, based on what you are saying, for people to just lie and say that they started a business which failed during the time they were unemployed?

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#29

Post by webwright »

ck2 wrote: post #16

So if a tool made in China cost $20 and the same kind made in USA cost $100, which one do you think people are going to buy at the hardware store (even if the one made in China lasts 1/4th as long). What if there was a tax that made the one made in China cost $70 - you think the one made in USA would have a fighting chance? I think so. It would create a whole bunch of jobs because there would be less impulse to move…

You know what happens if we tax the hell out of cheap overseas goods? Everything gets more expensive. Cost of living skyrockets and wages would have to go up commensurately if people were going to survive/thrive. Businesses who raised wages would have to curtail hiring because more of their revenues were going to wages.

Any they'd keep shipping jobs overseas because of the healthy margins selling in overseas markets. Start taxing that stuff too and see how many corporations decide that being a US company isn't so awesome anymore...

Re: One in five American men don't work: Where's the outrage?

#30

Post by sixtofour »

JamesBlair wrote: post #7
pedalpete wrote: post #3

I'm surprised the figure quoted in the opening paragraph would include incarcerated men along with those on disability and unemployed. According to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta... 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the US, and 93% are male, so that's 2.1 million men. The article also says 4.3 Americans have been jobless for months if not years. If this number includes t…

What's the alternative to being in prison and what are their prospects? I suspect that employers of the sorts of jobs that the incarcerated could find are probably not that eager to hire people with a history of drug use[-1] regardless of its legality, but I do not have any data. [-1]I also suspect that this is the main source of the incarcerations. But I'm not a US resident, I don't have any data here, either.

Violent crime is the main source of incarcerations.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/corrtyp.cfm

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