4 ms·

> needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all

by maratd 10y ago

> needing to sell all of your time/energy to keep a roof over your head and food in your mouth and still being told you're not good enough is depressing as all hell. This is how it's always been. So that doesn't hold water. I think the problem is, and you touched on this in your original comment, is that some people don't get a chance to "sell their time/energy". The unemployment numbers being quoted everywhere are a joke. Those numbers exclude discouraged workers who exit the economy and those people are the likeliest to off themselves.

jonhinson 10y ago
The U-4 (unemployed + discouraged workers) for March was 5.3% as opposed to the U-3 (unemployed) of 5% [1]. 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
- thatcat 10y ago
  Hm, I wonder how they hack these numbers together. I just made up my own unemployment metric, absolute unemployment. A-U = Population - Employees. For US. A-U = 308 mil. - 140 mil.(1) which suggests there is about 55% of the population who are not currently employed. So, A-U - U-4 = the approximately 50% of the population who don't need jobs I guess. 1.http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
  - zanny 10y ago
    Population in that case includes children and the retired. Albeit, I hate using the phrase "retired" here. Retired for most simply means the equivalent of someone being born into wealth retiring at age 0. Anyway, there are around 75 million kids, so real figures are something like 40% unemployed. But a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment, etc. Though hopefully the kids are also doing something as well besides just factory public schooling. Figure 1 in 4 is 14-18 and they might have some part time job, albeit unlikely. There is a fundamental shift to consider, though. A hundred years ago regardless of employment figures most people were farming and by farming that meant the whole family worked together to eat and provide shelter for themselves, and raise enough money to buy that which they cannot provide to themselves.
    - thatcat 10y ago
      >a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment I suspect this isn't a choice but a result of labor saturating the traditional market.
- lkrubner 10y ago
  Tyler Cowen writes: "You sometimes hear there is no evidence of automation putting people out of work, but arguably the automation of manufacturing, plus IT-enabled foreign competition, are significant factors behind this trend." See the graph here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/02/the-declining-labor-force-participation-rate-for-middle-aged-males.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/02/the... Male participation in the wage economy peaked right before the recession of 1958. We have now seen 57 years of decline. Women's participation in the economy peaked in the late 90s. How many decades of decline would you need to see before you feel you seeing a crisis?
zasz 10y ago
That's not how it's always been. Americans work unusually hard. In fact, medieval peasants often got more vacation time than Americans did: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you/ http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie...

by maratd 10y ago

jonhinson 10y ago

The U-4 (unemployed + discouraged workers) for March was 5.3% as opposed to the U-3 (unemployed) of 5% [1]. 1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

thatcat 10y ago
Hm, I wonder how they hack these numbers together. I just made up my own unemployment metric, absolute unemployment. A-U = Population - Employees. For US. A-U = 308 mil. - 140 mil.(1) which suggests there is about 55% of the population who are not currently employed. So, A-U - U-4 = the approximately 50% of the population who don't need jobs I guess. 1.http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001 http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
- zanny 10y ago
  Population in that case includes children and the retired. Albeit, I hate using the phrase "retired" here. Retired for most simply means the equivalent of someone being born into wealth retiring at age 0. Anyway, there are around 75 million kids, so real figures are something like 40% unemployed. But a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment, etc. Though hopefully the kids are also doing something as well besides just factory public schooling. Figure 1 in 4 is 14-18 and they might have some part time job, albeit unlikely. There is a fundamental shift to consider, though. A hundred years ago regardless of employment figures most people were farming and by farming that meant the whole family worked together to eat and provide shelter for themselves, and raise enough money to buy that which they cannot provide to themselves.
  - thatcat 10y ago
    >a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment I suspect this isn't a choice but a result of labor saturating the traditional market.
lkrubner 10y ago
Tyler Cowen writes: "You sometimes hear there is no evidence of automation putting people out of work, but arguably the automation of manufacturing, plus IT-enabled foreign competition, are significant factors behind this trend." See the graph here: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/02/the-declining-labor-force-participation-rate-for-middle-aged-males.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/02/the... Male participation in the wage economy peaked right before the recession of 1958. We have now seen 57 years of decline. Women's participation in the economy peaked in the late 90s. How many decades of decline would you need to see before you feel you seeing a crisis?

zasz 10y ago

That's not how it's always been. Americans work unusually hard. In fact, medieval peasants often got more vacation time than Americans did: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you/ http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie...