Binyamin Appelbaum writes at the NYT that the share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent as many men have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives, in part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working. These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits; the decline of marriage, which means fewer men provide for children; and the rise of the Internet, which has reduced the isolation of unemployment. Technology has made unemployment less lonely says Tyler Cowen, an economist at George Mason University, who argues that the Internet allows men to entertain themselves and find friends and sexual partners at a much lower cost than did previous generations. Perhaps most important, it has become harder for men to find higher-paying jobs as foreign competition and technological advances have eliminated many of the jobs open to high school graduates. The trend was pushed to new heights by the last recession, with 20 percent of prime-age men not working in 2009 before partly receding. But the recovery is unlikely to be complete. "Like turtles flipped onto their backs, many people who stop working struggle to get back on their feet," writes Appelbaum. "Some people take years to return to the work force, and others never do "
A study published in October by scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies estimated that 37 percent of the decline in male employment since 1979 can be explained by this retreat from marriage and fatherhood (PDF). “When the legal, entry-level economy isn’t providing a wage that allows someone a convincing and realistic option to become an adult — to go out and get married and form a household — it demoralizes them and shunts them into illegal economies,” says Philippe Bourgois, an anthropologist who has studied the lives of young men in urban areas. “It’s not a choice that has made them happy. They would much rather be adults in a respectful job that pays them and promises them benefits.”
(Score: 3, Funny) by middlemen on Monday December 15 2014, @04:01PM
is the invisible cloak finally here ?
how are fat american men vanishing otherwise ?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 15 2014, @04:23PM
Speaking of fat,
These changes include the availability of federal disability benefits
I wonder how much of a relationship exists between obesity and disability benefits.
You can't take a culture from 10% obesity to 50% obesity in a couple decades without some fallout, like, say, exploding disability recipients.
Also this is "old news" and something hashed out on other sites is FEDERAL disability is just the long term version of STATE unemployment, in practice. So states have enormous financial pressure to move people off state unemployment and onto federal disability.
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday December 15 2014, @08:10PM
Millions of American jobs disappeared during the 1990, 2001 and 2008 recessions. That’s what happens in recessions. But for decades after World War II, lost jobs came back when the economy picked up again. These times, they didn’t. And it was a particular sort of job that disappeared permanently in those downturns, economists from Duke University and the University of British Columbia have found: jobs that companies could easily outsource overseas or replace with a machine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/14/the-devalued-american-worker/ [washingtonpost.com]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday December 15 2014, @08:12PM
Corollary: Where did that VALUE evaporate?
Afghanistan War: One Trillion Dollars
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/14be0e0c-8255-11e4-ace7-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F14be0e0c-8255-11e4-ace7-00144feabdc0.html%3Fsiteedition%3Dintl&siteedition=intl [ft.com]
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 16 2014, @01:36AM