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The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#201

Post by jiggy2011 »

Flimm wrote: post #191
jiggy2011 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK so maybe things are somewhat different here with regards maternity but all women I have worked with who have taken time off for this have been given their job straight back once they are ready to return and are usually paid some % of their salary while they were off (I think the law mandates this).

Are you sure you don't have survivorship bias? How much effort have you made to seek out the ones that didn't come back and ask them why?

I can't recall any who didn't return, but it's a pretty small sample.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#202

Post by sukuriant »

drcube wrote: post #196
nostrademons wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because 2/3 of Americans are homeowners, so for a majority of Americans, falling house prices are bad. It's the same thing for most goods - the price mechanism is inherently value-neutral, and then whether it's better if prices go up or down depends upon how many people are potentially on each side of the transaction. Falling wages are seen as a bad thing, because most Americans identify with labor and not capit…

>It's because 2/3 of Americans are homeowners, so for a majority of Americans, falling house prices are bad. Why? Those homeowners shouldn't care what the price of their house is. While they're living in it, it doesn't matter, and when they sell, presumably their next house will be cheaper too. The only time home prices should matter is in comparison to the overall market. If your house got cheaper while other homes…

Houses are an asset in people's minds. This means that you can sell your house if you need to get extra money and you're in a bind, or to downsize from your current house to a cheaper-to-maintain one.

Let's say you bought a house for $400k with 100k down and have so far paid 50k towards the remaining 300k (plus interest, since it's a loan). The housing market has gone down, and your house is now worth $200k. (These sort of drops happen). Okay, so your house is worth $200k. You need to get out of there, but you've only paid 150k towards your 400k loan. You sold the house for 200k, so now you still owe 50k to the bank for a house you just sold for less. This does not help you out of your current situation, which was to sell an asset to pay for things, or to survive easier.

Edit: Note. This is a VERY simple and slightly inaccurate review of how paying for a house works. The intent of it was to explain why lowering prices are bad for people that already own homes.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#203

Post by danielweber »

jonathanwallace wrote: post #89
michaelochurch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if they act irrationally they will be sufficiently punished by the market (no childish fantasy required). The market does punish shitty corporations, but it happens over years to decades, and most people can't wait that long. How much comfort is it to someone who's unemployed if Microsoft breaks off and falls into the ocean in 2025? These people want jobs now and, as far as I can tell, don't really care what the…

Sounds like there is a market opportunity for job coaches. Reasonable-reason-for-extended-absence-from-the-job-market as a service, anyone?

Imperfectly or no, isn't this what recruiters do?

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#204

Post by joezydeco »

drcube wrote: post #196
nostrademons wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because 2/3 of Americans are homeowners, so for a majority of Americans, falling house prices are bad. It's the same thing for most goods - the price mechanism is inherently value-neutral, and then whether it's better if prices go up or down depends upon how many people are potentially on each side of the transaction. Falling wages are seen as a bad thing, because most Americans identify with labor and not capit…

>It's because 2/3 of Americans are homeowners, so for a majority of Americans, falling house prices are bad. Why? Those homeowners shouldn't care what the price of their house is. While they're living in it, it doesn't matter, and when they sell, presumably their next house will be cheaper too. The only time home prices should matter is in comparison to the overall market. If your house got cheaper while other homes…

If you're stuck in your home like in sukuriant's example, you can't move if you find a job somewhere else. You're stuck in the town you are in and you'll need to find something locally.

This is part of the problem with the American labor market at the moment.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#205

Post by walshemj »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #129
enraged_camel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

A house is a very useful durable good. Like automobiles and refrigerators.

Really some houses are built to last :-) I was looking to buy a place (before I got made redundant) built in the 1790's (Listed building mentioned in peveinser no less) and the farmhouse next to my parents house is 1500's/1600's John Bunyan preached there back in the day

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#206

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #127
cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

[deleted]

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#207

Post by walshemj »

Caerus wrote: post #182
enraged_camel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

The piece that I see ALWAYS neglected is maintenance. I rent and pay nothing additional to maintain the place. Washing machine breaks - landlord fixes it. Carpets wearing out (minus things that are obviously my fault) - landlord replaces it. Everyone I talk to who owns is constantly upgrading or replacing or fixing something in their house. It seems, on average, home maintenance is about 66-75% of my rent check; and…

the landlord then retains your deposit for "spurious" cleaning or do US landlords not do this nasty little scam.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#208

Post by rdouble »

walshemj wrote: post #207
Caerus wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The piece that I see ALWAYS neglected is maintenance. I rent and pay nothing additional to maintain the place. Washing machine breaks - landlord fixes it. Carpets wearing out (minus things that are obviously my fault) - landlord replaces it. Everyone I talk to who owns is constantly upgrading or replacing or fixing something in their house. It seems, on average, home maintenance is about 66-75% of my rent check; and…

the landlord then retains your deposit for "spurious" cleaning or do US landlords not do this nasty little scam.

It depends on the landlord.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#209

Post by michaelochurch »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #174
jonathanwallace wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like there is a market opportunity for job coaches. Reasonable-reason-for-extended-absence-from-the-job-market as a service, anyone?

Problem is, who's going to pay? Unemployed, especially long term unemployed don't have any money since they can't blow their monthly food budget on a 15 minute consultation.

I actually have an idea for how to solve that problem but I don't want to blow the idea. There's a startup concept that could work, but I need to pass it by a few key players.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#210

Post by bennesvig »

If you can't land a job in your desired field, get another job that pays a wage you can live on. Then in every single free moment you have, do work in the field you're interested in. Even if you have to do it for free (assuming the free work looks really good on a resume). It lets you keep something current on your resume and develop skills in the field. Doesn't work for every field and situation, but I've found it useful.
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