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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?

#31

Post by dools »

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…

I heard this for the first time on HN the other day. I think (and certainly hope) it's illegal for potential employers in Australia to use your credit file as a factor in deciding whether or not to hire you.

Not hiring people with bad credit seems to me to be patently absurd. Talk about kicking someone when they're down - as if non-payment of debt was a crime!

It seems that the likely result of this for most is the development of a disenfranchised underclass of black market employees.

Having healthcare attached to employment makes this all the more despicable.

Why aren't people in the U.S just rioting in the streets?! This is the real outrage.

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

#32

Post by doctoboggan »

webwright wrote: post #22

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…

I am curious as to why you state that government employees are not producing?

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

#33

Post by sliverstorm »

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.

Perhaps the article writer was making the assumption you imply, but there's potentially more to it than that.

Members of households all need to contribute, and while I am neither female nor married, I have heard from many married females that unemployed men do not generally tend to assume the duties of housekeeping. That is to say, the wife winds up both breadwinning and housekeeping, and the man does not contribute. This is broken.

It's sexist of me to generalize (and certainly I hope if I wind up married and unemployed, I won't let my partner take all the burden), and it may well not be what the author was thinking of, but if we take feminine anecdotes at face value there are more reasons to encourage men to be breadwinners than simply because it's their role.

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

#34

Post by orijing »

sliverstorm wrote: post #10
seanmcq wrote: post #9

"or getting by on the paychecks of wives" This is pretty rampant sexism for 2011. Don't want it to go unnoticed.

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

I think seanmcq is referring to the implication that "getting by" means subsistence wage (of the wife).

I don't think it was a sexist statement, but rather the focus is on "getting by." It could've been "getting by on his partner's wage" (if he were homosexual).

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

#35

Post by jlangenauer »

ars wrote: post #20
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 need to think on a larger scale. If everyone had to spend 3 times as much on the things they buy, then they would have even less available money than they do now. So they would probably stop buying, which would really hurt the economy. Or they would cut out health insurance and other things.

Or they would buy fewer things that they actually needed, and that would probably last longer.

Not an idle consideration on a planet with finite resources and an ecosystem being pushed beyond its limits.

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

#36

Post by mlg »

Hyena wrote: post #5

I think the article does a pretty good job. I've figured several times that there is no "talent shortage" but a "training shortage": companies want people with skills they learn on the job but are unwilling to actually train anyone. So you've got a bunch of companies sitting around waiting for a miracle to happen. Maybe HR imagines that a Google product exec will fall from the sky and accept $40k a year.

Even traditionally 'entry level' jobs that historically don't need a four-year degree are like this these days - secretary/receptionist jobs are almost always looking for people with two or three years of prior experience.

I wonder how much of this is due to the job market. Is it a supply and demand issue, where there are simply so many applicants that HR can sit back and wait for the perfect candidate? Or is the reluctance to hire less-experienced workers a long-term behavior shift that will stick around even if the worker supply dries up?

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

#37

Post by dools »

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…

I believe the economic term for that is "Protectionism".

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

#38

Post by potatolicious »

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…

I've always wondered why an employer would demand good credit. Even if the person is a spendthrift, what does it matter so long as they perform their job?

My employee could be living in a shack having had every single item of worth repossessed... but if they can do their job well, why wouldn't I hire them?

In any case, I know what you mean - I'm from Canada, and arrived in the US after the financial meltdown and subsequent tightening of the credit belt. I still don't have a credit rating since I couldn't convince any major bank in the USA to give me a credit card. Yes, this includes secured credit cards (i.e., you leave a month's credit limit with the bank in cash, if you miss your bill at all, they take the entire sum... aka zero risk for the bank) And yes, my credit in Canada is stellar - but that counts for absolutely zip in this country.

It's not until very recently that I was able to flash about an employer's name and convince one of them to cut me some slack. It'll be months still before my credit score populates - this has made renting apartments, and just about everything a nightmare.

The only way I've been able to skate by is by flashing an offer letter and pay stubs showing I make >3x the US median income... imagine if my pay was dead average... I'd be fucked.

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

#39

Post by ericd »

sliverstorm wrote: post #33
seanmcq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps the article writer was making the assumption you imply, but there's potentially more to it than that. Members of households all need to contribute, and while I am neither female nor married, I have heard from many married females that unemployed men do not generally tend to assume the duties of housekeeping. That is to say, the wife winds up both breadwinning and housekeeping, and the man does not contribute.…

Hear hear. Also, besides that, there is still a fairly widespread (if minor) stigma to making less than one's wife. It's not necessarily the writer making that judgement.

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

#40

Post by achompas »

webwright wrote: post #29
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.…

Right, and you're not even discussing the subsequent tariff war. Other countries would tax the hell out of American goods, global demand for our goods will fall, we'd produce less, companies would make less money, and people would lose their jobs.
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