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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 09 2016, @03:39AM   Printer-friendly

The "quiet catastrophe" is particularly dismaying because it is so quiet, without social turmoil or even debate. It is this: After 88 consecutive months of the economic expansion that began in June 2009, a smaller percentage of American males in the prime working years (ages 25 to 54) are working than were working near the end of the Great Depression in 1940, when the unemployment rate was above 14 percent. If the labor-force participation rate were as high today as it was as recently as 2000, nearly 10 million more Americans would have jobs.

The work rate for adult men has plunged 13 percentage points in a half-century. This "work deficit" of "Great Depression-scale underutilization" of male potential workers is the subject of Nicholas Eberstadt's new monograph "Men Without Work: America's Invisible Crisis," which explores the economic and moral causes and consequences of this:

Is it an aberration, or a harbinger of things to come?


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:21AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:21AM (#411969) Journal

    Raise the minimum, all prices go up, and $15/hr becomes the new threshold of poverty. Especially considering that few jobs today are full time. If forced to it, companies will pay the new minimum wage, raise prices on their products, and work people ten to twenty hours indefinitely. And, they'll also put everyone "on call". No weekly work schedule, you come to work when we call you, or you're out of a job. So, no the poor slobs can't even hold down two or three of those part time jobs.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:54AM (#412020)

    >No weekly work schedule, you come to work when we call you, or you're out of a job

    Then the men kill them.

  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @01:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @01:59PM (#412063)

    Raise the minimum and all wages go up. And all the people with extra money to spend will create more demand and require more jobs.

    The simple solution is to take more money from those who don't spend it (rich) and give it to those who will (poor).

    It's not controversial with respect to the outcomes, it's entirely logical and sensible,and everyone knows it. But the rich set the agenda, and it goes against everything they are. Whats the point of having 5 yachts if a lowly middle classer is allowed to have one. rich toys are only fun if they are exclusive.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @04:50PM (#412110)

    Its so heart warming to see the typical classist mindset at work. I know, you don't think that is you, but it is. Your head has been filled by old presumptions that you don't even question...

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:39PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 09 2016, @06:39PM (#412150) Journal

      "typical classist mindset"

      I wonder - have you ever been in business? If Jack and Judy are making a living off of a restaurant, but not getting wealthy, while paying their employees $10, then Big Brother tells them they have to increase wages by 50%, something has to give.

      Either J&J restaurant tells Big Brother to "fuck off", or they raise prices, or they go out of business. Assuming that all other costs stay the same, they simply cannot justify operating the restaurant at a loss after the minimum wage goes through. Can't be done.

      GOVERNMENT might operate anything and everything at a loss, but that's only because they can demand more money from us gullible taxpayers.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @07:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 09 2016, @07:30PM (#412162)

        That is a simplistic assessment proven wrong by a handful of businesses that are able to compete just fine paying above minimum wage. The businesses that would actually be affected are places like Walmart and fast food chains. They make plenty of profit, and besides which any price increases would be quite marginal and well worth the benefit to your fellow citizens. As I said, you've just swallowed the koolaid that pits the working class against each other.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:57PM (#412977)

          The businesses that pay above minimum wage aren't under discussion here. The topic is people who can't be economically employed at minimum wage levels. If you can't make some kind of reasonable return (allowing for taxes, expendable items, interest rates and so on) when paying minimum wage, that job has to go or the employer loses money.

          As for the fast food chains, the head offices might make money, but many of the individual franchises are a bad week or three away from going out of business. This has already happened in a few of the areas where they jacked up the minimum wage, or people moved their franchises out of the relevant jurisdiction.

          A lot of this federal minimum wage rhetoric totally ignores the fact that Mississippi and Massachusetts are completely different places, and that trying to apply rules that make sense in one to the other is just stupid. $15/hour in much of (especially rural) Mississippi is not bad money, but in Boston it's starvation wages.

          One size does not fit all.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @12:27AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @12:27AM (#412241)

        So a hell of a lot of people just got 50% raises, wow !
        Time to take the family out to dinner and celebrate, this J&J's looks nice.

        Giving an extra Billion dollars to a handful of rich people, how many are going to go to J&J's to spend it?
        Give that extra Billion to poor people and they will spend it on places like J&J's, along with everything else people spend money on. Everyone wins, the extra demand creates more jobs and gives even more people money that they also spend.

        (PS. You know governments can just print money right. They don't need to make a profit like a business does.)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:10PM (#412983)

          What you're fumbling for is the multiplier effect on spending.

          The multiplier effect is not infinite, and in fact has fairly limited scope. There's no particular reason to believe that the incremental benefit to a hypothetical J&J would keep pace with the additional wage burden. This goes double once you account for the inflationary effect of the helicopter drop.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @03:14AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @03:14AM (#413245)

            No it's not infinite. But giving more and more of the money to the rich is exactly how we got into the problem in the first place.
            Simple fact is the poorer you are the more likely you are to spend any extra money you receive. The rich have plenty of money to invest if only there were good investments to be made. Companioes have record amounts of cash just sitting around waiting for demand to pick up.
            If only there was a simple way to kill all the birds with one stone...(give poor some money and increase demand)

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @09:54PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @09:54PM (#414095)

              Far from being infinite, it's actually pretty small.

              What does Joe Minimum do when his wage gets raised? He spends it, as you correctly observe. Where does he spend it? Chances are, the vast majority of his expenditures are on cheap commodities, most efficiently provided by ... gigantic corporations.

              The actual real-world multiplier of increased money going to the bottom of the income curve is barely over 1. Now this is not an argument to keep them there, but it does mean that the belief that raising the minimum wage will mean more revenue at local, small players is rather flawed.

              What you want to do, is increase revenue at all levels, and funnily enough that is what has been happening. If you actually look at the federal census numbers, the lowest income households have been shrinking pretty substantially as a proportion of the population (with income measured in real, i.e. inflation adjusted terms) for decades. America is doing a good job of upliftment.

              The number one thing holding corporations back from investment is the federal government itself. From stupid laws like Sarbanes-Oxley (causing companies like EMC to go private) to suffocating regulations on things like repatriation of taxes.

              In short, if you want a better economy, tell the feds to stop being dicks.

              Good luck with that one.

      • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday October 10 2016, @02:32AM

        by Mykl (1112) on Monday October 10 2016, @02:32AM (#412269)

        I wonder - have you ever been in business? If Jack and Judy are making a living off of a restaurant, but not getting wealthy, while paying their employees $10, then Big Brother tells them they have to increase wages by 50%, something has to give.

        This experiment has been run successfully several times across the US:

        1. Raise wages for restaurant workers by 50%
        2. Get rid of tips
        3. Raise the base price of the food to accommodate

         

        The result? Increased wages for staff, relatively flat net-effect for customers and restaurant owners. Staff liked it because it improved conditions for everyone at the restaurant, not just the wait staff (why should the person who actually cooks your food not get equal consideration to the person who just brings it out to you?). Customers liked it because they didn't have to agonise over how much to leave, calculate some percentage etc

        There are other examples for other industries, but how about instead I just point you to just about every other developed country in the world? Most have higher minimum wages and lower unemployment than the US

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @03:01AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 10 2016, @03:01AM (#412284) Journal

          Just making sure here -

          You do realize the whole tips thing is a reflection of corruption about a century ago? When minimum wages were established in this country, originally, some food service people had the ears of the law makers. They lobbied to make food service exempt from the minimum wage.

          I agree that there should be no tipping. Honest work is honest work, and all workers should enjoy the same benefits and protections from the government.

          Not very many years ago, there was a restaurant and bar in SE Oklahoma that was very popular, with the guys at least. They paid the ladies a dollar an hour plus tips. The skimpier the women dressed, the better the guys tipped. Now, I'm no feminist, but that is blatant exploitation of women. It's so freaking obviously exploitation that no county judge should ever have permitted the operation to go on.

          Tipping is one of the symptoms of our screwed up society.

          Printing money? Our government has been printing worthless paper ever since the Greenback was obsoleted. They just print more and more of it.

          Have you noticed that the dollar is being replaced as the reserve currency in the global market? Even the Chinese Yuan has been accepted as a reserve currency. Where the dollar once ruled supreme, today many people place their faith in other currencies.

          Printing money has it's own unintended consequences.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 13 2016, @11:27AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 13 2016, @11:27AM (#413839) Journal

          why should the person who actually cooks your food not get equal consideration to the person who just brings it out to you?

          Because they're not the ones interacting with the guest. Plus the restaurant can already set aside a portion of tips for the kitchen staff. It's not rocket science. And the people who cook your food already get paid much higher wages than the wait staff does.

          Most have higher minimum wages and lower unemployment than the US

          Sure they do. US is middle of the pack [oecd.org]. And I think the US would have a better employment rate if it weren't for the viciously anti-business Obama administration currently in power.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @11:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 10 2016, @11:52AM (#412379)

        GOVERNMENT might operate anything and everything at a loss, but that's only because they can demand more money from us taxpayers at gunpoint.

        FTFY

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:42PM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday October 09 2016, @10:42PM (#412229) Journal

    Economics is not one of Runaway's strong suites. But then, neither is math, or history, or geology, or the military (despite he having been in one for a short period, he never really comprehended the institution as a whole). So, I think we all can safely ignore this, and Runaway's other, comments.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @02:40AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 10 2016, @02:40AM (#412272) Journal

      Aristarchus, we all know that I have my detractors. But, you make it more personal than anyone else.

      Are you secretly in love with me? I gotta tell you man, I'm not into gay marriage. But, you already knew that, right?

      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 10 2016, @07:21AM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Monday October 10 2016, @07:21AM (#412337) Journal

        Runaway1956, yes, I love you, man! You remind me of so many of my relatives, dirt farmers on the Isle of Samos, and so may I have encountered since leaving there. Good people, but lacking education. So I love them, despite how ignorant and foolish they are. Still good farmers.
        '
        But you, my dear Runaway! You have something my relatives on Samos did not, and in fact could not have conceived of. The internet. Now the purpose of the internet is to disseminate information. With a few keystrokes, can learn all about the moons of Saturn,or any other topic my fancy points me toward. Of course, the downside is that anyone can put up almost anything as fact on the internets. And this, deplorably, is what you have been doing.

        My dear Runaway, here is my suggestion that may preclude my personal attacks on your bullshit: stop posting bullshit! Now I have to say. as no doubt you would, that there was a time when people of the earth. farmers and craftsmen, could tell when they were being bullshitted. No more. This is where a bit more education comes in. Even a little Community College education should tell you that Fox News is no news, that everything you think you know about economics is propaganda, and that none of the women in your immediate family agree with your views on feminism. So we here at SoylentNews are engaged in the long term project of the education of the Runaway,
        we know it is difficult, we know it will take time. But I would ask two things of you.

        First: Do not post anything that pops into you head. Reflect, cogitate, think about it.
        Second: Stop watching Fox News, and Breitbart. and all those (((news))) sites that are not actually news.

        And as for the gay marriage thing? I accept, but it must be a marriage of the minds, as equals here on Soylent. So long as you are wallowing in ignorance, our love must go unrequited. I am sure your livestock, however many may be alive, are sorely disapppointed.

        [um. this is the point where you bring out your .45, not realizing that a .40, being much younger and therefore faster, has already penetrated you, and as you fall, that you're saying "All Lives Matter!" matters not. We hold out hope for you. Runaway, just not much hope.]

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 10 2016, @07:38AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 10 2016, @07:38AM (#412341) Journal

          Fox News? Breitbart? WTF? You could at least try to keep up with my contempt for those. Fox is the equal and opposite reaction to the crazy assed mainstream media. Fox and MSM are equally detestable, because they are opposites.

          My educational background fascinates you, doesn't it? Just FYI, my background is in business administration. Although it isn't "science", or "tech", it is an education. One has to know how to think, how to tally up numbers, figure percentages, make decisions, predict trends, etc. And, that does require some training.

          Now, before you get all excited, and point to those portions of my work history that I've posted online, I got out of BA long ago. I had my reasons, but the one that might concern you is, real life isn't what you experience indoors, behind closed doors.

          I want you to keep a thought in your mind. You know that there are AT LEAST two sides to every story, right? You need to ponder the possibility that some of what I post isn't bullshit at all. Instead, at least some of it simply looks like bullshit because bullshit is what you know best. Instead of rose colored glasses, you wear bullshit lenses.

          And, you can admit that you might be a presumptuous ass, for presuming that I have no education. Or, more accurately, for presuming that your education is somehow superior to my own.

          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday October 10 2016, @07:25PM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Monday October 10 2016, @07:25PM (#412591) Journal

            You need to ponder the possibility that some of what I post isn't bullshit at all.

            I admit the possibility, but why should I have to ponder it? Usually it is up to the author to go beyond the mere possibility of not being bullshit.

            And, you can admit that you might be a presumptuous ass, for presuming that I have no education.

            And this, too, is possible, I may be presumptuous. But probably not in your case. BusAd? I have been triggered! You could have warned us! No, it is the content of your posts that reveal the degree and extent of your knowledge and wisdom. It is nice that you have an opinion on almost everything, but did you ever think about upgrading to something with a basis in reality? Despite your repudiation of them, the talking points from Fox and Breitbart just seem to flow through you.

            I am sorry if you were offended. This is what we now call a "Trumpology".

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:04AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:04AM (#412799)

              I just imagine some of the more wild caricatures on this site being a single person who has nothing better to do than argue with themselves for public display.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:13PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:13PM (#412984)

                Aristarchus is a grouse.

                http://humoncomics.com/grouse [humoncomics.com]