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

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

#4

TLDR: They're students, retired boomers, or sick middle agers.

Yep, although it is slightly worrying that there are 2.6 million people who want a job but aren’t looking. If I had to guess, probably a lot of that is due to a lack of marketable skills.

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

#6
post #4

TLDR: They're students, retired boomers, or sick middle agers.

Yep, although it is slightly worrying that there are 2.6 million people who want a job but aren’t looking. If I had to guess, probably a lot of that is due to a lack of marketable skills.

Or lack of demand for services in their area.

I wonder how they are clustered geographically.

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

#7

TLDR: They're students, retired boomers, or sick middle agers.

This comment is overly reductionist -- 'disabled' is a code word for long-term un-employable.

Just eyball the proportion of working adults in the 50 to 60 year range. It is only ~5x the number of disabled. In other words, that is a huge %--maybe 20%--of potential workers in that age bracket.

Any employment process that disables 20% of its workforce would be normally considered a problem.

But instead we call the un-employable 'diabled', to sweep the data under the rug.

It almost certainly helps keep other people in their jobs, tho (like burecrats and academics).

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

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the 2 million who "want a job but aren't looking"

2 million out of 318 doesn't seem especially newsworthy.

It's an insidious problem. Those two million people are not doing any particular thing on any particular day, but en masse, they are taxing the social safety net in ways it is not meant for. Services become limited as resources dry up, healthcare costs go through the roof as the industry soaks up every dollar the government is willing to spend, quality of education plummets as people determine there is no sense in striving for the American dream, prison system costs skyrocket as crime increases, and the list goes on.

So it's not newsworthy when taken as a statistic, but you can find that the problem and its societal and human costs definitely are. If your bubble is big enough to keep you insulated from all this, then good for you.

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

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the 2 million who "want a job but aren't looking"

2 million out of 318 doesn't seem especially newsworthy.

To put it in perspective: there are more people who want a job but aren't looking for a job than there are people in the entire US prison system (2.6 million vs 2.4 million).
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