7 ms·

The Idle Army: America’s Unworking Men

50 points by randomname2 10y ago

internaut 10y ago
Wages must rise. They have not risen for nearly four decades in real terms. Major life expenses are unaffordable to all but the wealthy, such as housing. This single fact explains lots of things in the present. It appears we're trapped in a local maximum while journalists and politicians blithely ignore the plateauing of growth, wages and technology outside of computation. If you think everything is getting better and better, you've taken your eyes off the road for a while now.
- huherto 10y ago
  > Wages must rise I would say that housing should be less expensive. These prices are impossible even with a good salary. You need two good salaries to buy one house and still have money for your other expenses.
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    I said this somewhere else in this thread but just move to the Midwest. There is plenty of space and depending on where you want to live houses can be super cheap.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      There are many problems with moving to the Midwest. It's like someone suggesting moving to Puerto Rico to save on money since a place with a vastly different culture is not simply interchangeable (and I'm saying this as someone who has lived all over the U.S.). Edit: for the downvotes lets remember that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. and that Puerto Ricans are American (i.e. estadounidense).
      - kesselvon 10y ago
        You can have most of the amenities of coastal urban life in places like Chicago; which even has its own coast and doesn't have the outrageous COL that places like San Francisco, LA, or NYC have. Sure you're not going to make the same crazy salaries, but you're also not spending 5k for a 1br apartment in the Mission
        jdavis703 10y ago
        What would you spend for a nice apartment by good transit?
        fovc 10y ago
        My peer group just out of college in consulting paid $1000 - $1600 for nice places. Low end of the range would be shared with 2-3 others and maybe 40 min outside the loop. High-end would be for a 1BR 15-20 min out. You could also live in West Loop (think lofts) in brand new places for even less
        jdavis703 10y ago
        I imagine that heating and electric adds a couple hundred though? (in CA I pay about $20/month for gas/electric, but remember paying hundreds when I lived back east).
        vonmoltke 10y ago
        > in CA I pay about $20/month for gas/electric How the hell do you pay so little? I pay $25/month just to have a gas connection.
        jdavis703 10y ago
        I'm rarely home and have a small studio apartment. I don't have AC (most homes I know don't have it in Oakland), and there's almost no point in running fans when I'm gone.
    - pnathan 10y ago
      Far too many race and culture issues in the Midwest IMO. Not to mention lack of software jobs & economy propped up by ag cycles & federal farm bills. Lots of articles about the issues in rural America, won't repeat them here. Much rather live in Seattle, NYC, Boston, etc. Much better living, profoundly more jobs (both in number and variety), far better culture, better politics, much more environmentally friendly.
      - amyjess 10y ago
        I live and work in the suburbs of Dallas. I'm also an openly LGBT Jew, and nobody gives me any problem. And the large Asian populations (Chinese, Indian, and Korean especially) in the suburbs here shows that lots of people of other races choose to live here over other places in the country. It's debatable over whether or not North Texas counts as "the midwest" (really, Texas can be divided into five sections, which go into separate regions), but I like to think of it as such. We're in Tornado Alley, and most of Dallas feels like a typical middle-American suburb.
        pnathan 10y ago
        I am pretty sure everyone agrees Texas is a different country. ;-) TBH I've heard Texas has a pleasingly libertarian vibe about many personal choices, but you are required to love HS football.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    What I don't understand is why the government isn't building housing to sell. You'd put workers back to work, and prevent some of these crazy expensive prices. It seems like all developers want to build are mcmansions and luxury apartments they can sell for tremendous profits. Where are the cheap starter homes and condos?
    - prostoalex 10y ago
      The price tag on the final construction is defined by three things - cost of land, cost of labor, and cost or building materials (which includes things such as equipment rentals). Where would a government construction company experience massive price advantage that cannot be replicated by a private entity? Their cost of equipment is same as everybody else's, their labor costs are probably higher due to extra layers of bureaucracy and stronger union contracts.
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        There's a lot of city owned land in the Bay Area, that would effectively cost the government nothing. Not to mention abandoned lots that should face stiff liens, and eventual seizure if nothing is done about it. Then they contract with the same builders that the private sector uses. But instead of building apartments with granite countertops and bathtubs with water jets, they use simple finishings (or just don't finish things at all, like in my apartment, the floor is polished concrete and the ceilings reveal the structural elements).
        prostoalex 10y ago
        The primary reason for housing shortage is not real estate developer laziness and apathy. If Vegas, Florida or empty Chinese towns taught us anything, developers will build given a chance to appropriate a large budget or a cheap loan. How much of that city owned land is zoned residential, has no building restrictions and is set up for electricity, gas, water and roads? Most developers also present a choice of finishings, if you're committing to a brand-new construction, where one can go from custom Italian marble to basically nothing. KB Homes and Lennar are particularly known for no-frills simpler-designs cheaper units, check out South or East San Jose and anywhere in Morgan Hill / Gilroy vicinity.
  - edc117 10y ago
    Except the government has basically made it their priority to prop up the existing housing prices as much as possible, and keep it that way. For every young person desperate for an affordable house, there is an older person that is counting on their house's current value to be able to retire. It's a mess.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      I really don't understand how that works. You can't (reasonably) sell the siding and plumbing in your house for groceries and medical bills... So how do people use their house for retirement (you know besides not paying rent or mortgage)?
      - huherto 10y ago
        It is a mirage. You think you are making money but you cannot use it. Unless you retire in an inexpensive place. Or die. You will have a lot of money when you die and can sell your house.
      - fovc 10y ago
        You go to the bank and say "my neighbor's house just sold for $X. My house is better. Can I have a loan for $X * .8?" Also see reverse mortgages [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mortgage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mortgage
        jdavis703 10y ago
        But that's only a few hundred thousand dollars, probably for one time though?
        huherto 10y ago
        So you can extend your credit. But you still have to pay that. You don't get to spend that money.
      - prostoalex 10y ago
        Via a HELOC or a reverse mortgage, which becomes a thing for people 70 and older. Alternatively, selling to cash out and move to some spot favored by American retirees, such as Costa Rica or Palma de Mallorca, where the dollar (as well as Social Security check) goes much further.
  - a_thro_away 10y ago
    Agreed, but your local governments will not let that happen because they want your money. They fight every single day to maintain a false market value of your house, basing its value simply upon the few percent who are willing or able to pay an ever upwards higher prices. A value based upon construction labor rates that skyrocket because of their daily increasing mandated certifications, insurances and fees and taxes and laws, and a value based on construction materials subject to more of their certifications and upwards marching specifications (a 5 inch well for four people? while water usage per person is halved during the same period?). And finally, by them "adding taxable value" to your property (at your cost), for example, by forcing new massively expensive sewer and water systems, often, because historically they permitted very small lots. When those lots have sanitary problems and the land value falls low, they won't let go of the tax money from those properties, instead, charging everyone to upgrade the entire infrastructure at massive costs (for which they then get an admin fee forever, as well as keeping the taxes). Finally, outsourcing the infra. services to a third party, at what, cost plus? No, housing will never get cheaper.
  - internaut 10y ago
    Even if house prices were not so inflated wages would still be stagnant. That's a much bigger problem for the economy than house prices because it is harder to solve for. Reasonable house prices are just a solution to the most immediate problem facing us today, that is all. Judging by the downvotes, many people are totally in denial about this. It is pathetic. I'm a red blood tooth and nail capitalist. If I say wage stagnation is real you had better believe it.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  If you'd like wages to rise, ban non-wage compensation (e.g. health insurance) rather than subsidizing it. Compensation has risen consistently, it's just been mostly (untaxed) non-wage compensation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
  - internaut 10y ago
    I have strong doubts about this. It is not that I don't believe non-wage compensation exists, it is that the same pattern exists in most other Western countries, not just America. It tends to begin a decade or so later in my own country and others (explained by us playing economic catch-up), but it is the same pattern. You can't explain this with a little redistribution here or there. Remember we're talking about (in this article's context) mostly younger people bearing the brunt of this, so it is not as if they are incurring major medical bills on average, thereby not requiring that health subsidy, so that is a hypothetical rather than a fact. I suspect this is all better explained by lack of technological change (ex-computation) with logical follow through in the growth statistics and wages. Let me give you an anecdote. Most graduated students from universities make less income per year than I did from my summer job. Read that twice. And I wasn't making much more than min wage at the time. That can partly be explained by oversupply, but fundamentally this is such a contradiction to the education/wealth meme (go to Yale or go to Jail, you don't want to get a job at Mikky-Ds) that it has slipped under most older people's radar altogether. The fact is actually that most college students would have been better off working minimum wage, living with their parents. They would be in a considerably better position today if that had taken that advice. This is changing rapidly, more people are waking up to the realities of the job markets. There is no longer any point in going to college. The jobs just don't pay enough for it to make any sense. I went to an elite university and I'm saying it. People who have the good fortune to have rich parents should not be counted as part of the statistics because there is a limit to the number of people who can work internships from Dad's townhouse in the most expensive cities in the world. You adjust ROI for cost of living and you quickly discover any students in 'good jobs' have wealthy parents capable of covering their living expenses in places like London, New York. This was not always the case, but it is now. Today's intelligent student is better off starting their own company. Not because it is easy or likely to succeed, but because they are all out of options.
- internaut 10y ago
  Dear Downvoter > They have not risen for nearly four decades in real terms. This is a fact. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Do your god damn research.
  - sctb 10y ago
    The guidelines ask you not to do this, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - internaut 10y ago
      Alright. I was having a 'people are wrong on the internet' moment. What does get my goat though is that a comment can spin off a hundred replies and the initial comment is invisible. I've seen it happen a few times now to other people. It is controversy/mystery and then a back and forth without context and I find myself highlighting the initial comments to discover what actually happened. It even happens to the OP's initial statement! Blank and a slew of comments. That might be the flamewar detector in action though. That seems like a flaw in the algorithm. If the thread is worth reading instead of a flamewar then surely the initial comment ought to be (more likely to be) visible for reading? I get that the initial comment could be nonsensical and the offspring of it could be still useful but it seems weird since those replies wouldn't have happened without it. You've heard the saying that it is easier to get good information by saying something wrong on the Net and being corrected, rather than by requesting said information. Seems like the present algorithm goes against a 'Law of the Internet'.
fengb 10y ago
Stay-at-home dads explains 2 million of this article's main statistic. So even if the remaining 5 million of the "needs work", the employment number is closer to 89%. Edit: there's a reason economists usually use "looking for work" for unemployment numbers: it's really hard to gauge why people don't look for work.
- prostoalex 10y ago
  Stay-at-home by choice and stay-at-home due to inability to find gainful employment are very different demographics, though. http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319214546/stay-at-home-dads-on-the-rise-and-many-of-them-are-poor http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319214546/stay-at-home-dads-on...
jschwartzi 10y ago
Is it truly a flight from work? I think most of those men would work jobs if they A) existed and B) paid better than disability.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  There are many many things wrong with the article (elementary mistakes that a Harvard economist should not have made), but considering that it is basically a puff piece for his book, I'm not surprised in the slightest. The article is typical WSJ garbage, gets cause and effect confused, makes comical, out-of-touch assumptions and, as usual, places the burden and fault on NEETs.
- prostoalex 10y ago
  > They tend to be: 1) less educated; Unless they luck out and find themselves amidst a housing bubble circa 2006 where everyone and their brother is employed in constructing real estate, investing in real estateo, transacting in real estate on commission basis, underwriting mortgages for real estate or pitching dubious mortgages for others to buy real estate, there's not a lot of opportunities for under-educated males nowadays.
ollerac 10y ago
Google link to get around the paywall: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj23bGW7fDOAhUCgx4KHU15DbcQqQIIHzAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-idle-army-americas-unworking-men-1472769641&usg=AFQjCNHk0rKbh-8VWT7QvcQJEyZA2JZ8qQ&sig2=1IpLylmM38cmnuOEaFR9gw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
- eric_h 10y ago
  Best used in an incognito window if you've already clicked the direct link.
susan_hall 10y ago
This is an interesting opening, coming from the Wall Street Journal: "Millions of young males have left the workforce and civic life. Full employment? The U.S. isn’t even close." If the USA is not close to full employment, then the USA does not have to work about inflation. And yet, in other commentary, the Wall Street Journal has been obsessed with the risk of inflation, for many years now. They have urged the Fed to raise rates to head off a surge in inflation. But if there is hidden unemployment, then rates can remain low longer, with little risk of inflation.
- hx87 10y ago
  Inflation can still happen in sectors that have both investment-like and consumption-like qualities, such as real estate, when massive amounts of investment capital try to look for safe and/or high-yielding havens.
  - bsbechtel 10y ago
    Or the stock market, which keeps hitting all time highs despite anemic economic growth.
- douche 10y ago
  I would think, when the labor force participation rate is 62%, and there are 94 million out of the work force, it's pretty obvious that there is a lot of unemployment. Granted, included in that number are the elderly and retired, but that's still a lot of people. The thing with inflation, is that its not broad-based, 1930s-fill-a-wheelbarrow-with-Deutschmarks-for-a-loaf-of-bread inflation, it's inflation in some sectors and deflation in others. Housing, education and health care are going through the roof, but groceries and consumer goods are staying about the same or getting cheaper, and gasoline and heating costs are the lowest they've been in a decade or more.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Indeed - as Krugman keeps going on about, there's little risk of "classical" inflation. What there is is a lot of complaining from the rentier class (and some of the better off pensioners) that they can't make 4% for doing nothing any more.
speeder 10y ago
I have the impression the article got the cause and effect ordering confused. It states for example on one paragraph, that the men not working, exacerbate family breakdown. As someone in my 28s having lots of problems like in the article, I can personally claim, that for me, and all my friends, it is the other way around: Creating a family in the current society, is almost impossible, two incomes is necessary, thus reducing time available to take care of kids, divorce is too easy, making it too risky for men (in my country, 72% of "no-fault" divorces were initiated by women for example), young women are not interested in serious relationships (instead they are interested in having fun, one-night stands, drinking, sex, etc...) because it gets in the way of having a career. So, because of all this, starting a family, even if you really, really want it, is excessively hard. So... why bother? Why put a massive effort to work your ass off, if you won't have anything to do with the money? Alright, you go and work 60 hours/week, save money... and now what? Buy a house, to live in it alone? Buy a car, that doesn't fit your parents garage that has their car already? Or buy videogames that you can't play because you work 60 hours/week? It is logical, that the thing to be done, is do the mininum necessary to support a loner lifestyle, this is not my case (far from it), but I've met people where their current simple non-creative jobs can pay for international trips, restaurants and prostitutes, but are still too far from supporting a family, so... why not just stay where they are, and enjoy international trips, restaurants and prostitutes? Why work so hard to not have any leisure time, if the result would be reach old age alone, rich, and with nothing to spend that money with and no friends? EDIT: people are making some assumptions about me and understanding this wrong. So to clear things up: 1. I am more of a exception guy, I don't like one night stands and whatnot, and don't go to bars or clubs, I look for women in my social circle, that is academia, workplaces (related to tech, always), and church. The women I described is what I saw there, maybe women elsewhere are different. 2. I am from Brazil, sometimes I forget how confortable life in US is in general, many people replied that you don't need two-person income if you have a non-luxurious life, here in Brazil, the US "middle-class" life, of having two cars for example, is only for rich people, most of the population can't afford even a single car (I for example don't own a car, even if I summed all my income of the last 5 years, I would still not have enough for a car), here two-person income is necessary even if you are going to live in a favela shack with walls made of discarded wood and roof tiles, I just assumed this was the case for most of US too. I would love some detailed information if that is true, or not. 3. From what I've heard, housing, healthcare, and some other basic necessities are very expensive in US in general, housing is very expensive in Brazil too, even if bad quality "supermarket" food is cheap, you can't start a family with a single income if you can't afford housing and healthcare, for example if your kids get sick, how you will pay for it? Even here in Brazil where the state gives completely free healthcare, people still consider it too risky to not have healthcare money, sometimes your kid need something now and you don't have time to wait the state. 4. Some people reading the text are assuming I am a NEET myself... that is not the case, I just find myself seriously tempted to do so though (because I am trying, very hard, to get money to start a family, yet I never got a legal job, and so far my total net worth is negative, some months I paid more in interest than the monthly mininum wage)
parennoob 10y ago
Note that the article has the word "women" in it only twice (and in an inconsequential sentence); and the word "female" 0 times. Discussing the unemployment levels of men in America without taking into account the vast sociological changes involving the genders in the last 20-30 years e.g. a lot more women in the workforce, societal expectations of more parenting involvement from men, etc.) is not much use unless you are trying on some sort of strange shaming tactic on men. FWIW I don't think the author is doing this intentionally.
googletazer 10y ago
Vast majority of these "unworking men" are employed in the underground economy, working under the table, which provides a subsistence living. Perhaps only 10% are true NEETs with recognized disabilities/parents wealthy enough to carry them. I don't see it as a good or a bad thing - society has reorganized itself and there is no place for these people anymore. With greater and greater levels of automation the problem is only going to get worse. 30% of people find it hard to do math beyond 8th grade, where would they fit in the modern economy? Furthermore if you start from the very bottom, some people will struggle and succeed, but most will give up - whats the point anyway? Living a minimalist lifestyle supporting your own limited needs beats working for Amazon and keeling over at 35 with a heart attack. Seems as if success and fulfillment in modern society is on the edges of the distribution - either you're a minimalistic bum or balls to the wall businessman.
taxicabjesus 10y ago
Early one morning I got a fare at a house at the southern edge of Chandler. It was a young family - Man, Woman, Infant. They were going to the airport... The man said that he'd tried driving for the taxi company, but it didn't work for him. I had various other passengers who'd also tried their hand at taxi driving, and couldn't make money. The traditional model for running a taxi service involves leasing cabs out for 12 hour shifts. Drivers have to work as much of those 12 hours to maximize their income. The first couple hours pay for the lease. An hour or two pays for gas. The last few hours are when you pay yourself. This passenger had started driving for the Venture Capitalists' "not-a-taxi" business, and he thought it was great. The venture capitalists' business taps into the vast hoards of people who aren't good employee material, and those who want to supplement their income. But the money wasn't really enough for this passenger - he was working on a way to increase his income. After expenses, driving for the venture capitalists is the same as driving for the taxi company: they're both low-skill minimum-wage jobs. It was a very nice neighborhood... I imagined that this family had support from their parents to be able to live there. When I was talking to my ex-wife yesterday, she pointed out that I value freedom more than anything else. This is why I was drawn to taxi driving, and why I stuck with it for so long. The taxi company had their dress code, and standards. They didn't care what I did with their taxi, as long as I paid them at the end of the shift. I could have found a regular JOB, but I enjoyed the adventure of going new places every day, and meeting new people every day, and occasionally being sent to help someone who needed more than just a ride. JOB is a backronym that stands for "Just Over Broke". My income from taxi driving was enough to finance my entrepreneurial ambitions. The only "real job" I've had was working for Amazon [1]. I worked at a summer camp when I was 12 or 13. After I graduated from teh college with a "B.S." Computer Science degree (it is an expensive piece of paper that hangs on my father's wall), I worked at various family-owned businesses, and helped take care of my grandparents... I am not well-suited to being an employee. Now that I don't drive around in the taxi anymore, I'm thinking about applying for the IT department at the local hospital... Recently I went to visit a friend in the ER, and this fellow was swapping out a scanner, so I struck up a conversation... It'd be a temporary gig. [1] http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best-hope/ http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best-hope/
hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
This is something that I'm worried about. I'm three years out of college and in my (very small) group of friends, two of us have full time ccorporate (middle class) jobs, one is starting his second masters degree, one is a part time personal trainer, and one is doing seasonal work at a farm. All of them have college degrees and all of them express interest in entrepreneurship and start-up culture. I think there is a problem with these guys (and myself) of being content with a bottom of the ladder corporate job. We all feel like we should be having more of an impact on our world and our jobs. I can't decide if this is a misplaced feeling of entitlement or a legitimate want of a "good" job that provides professional satisfaction.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  I remember leaving uni in 2003, for 3-5 years everyone had shitty jobs, bottom of the ladder and then it suddenly just changed. The first few years of work young people are usually a complete mixed bag, even if gifted. They need quite a lot of baby-sitting, tolerance and guidance from co-workers and bosses and make silly mistakes and usually are quite poor at communicating. It's all part of growing up. I can look back and realise that in myself back then. And then it changes and you start getting promotions and then it's all different. So don't judge anything by where you all are now, give it another 2 or 3 years. I know it sounds trite and patronizing, but it's true. It's one of the reasons I'm always surprised pg, Thiel, etc. pushed for people to start companies straight out of college or even while in college. Young people are often so utterly clueless that I think a lot of the mistakes they make could just be fixed by them working for someone else for a little bit, even 6 months. As well solving the tendency for hip young entrepreneurs to make incredibly basic HR mistakes.
amyjess 10y ago
I'm really disappointed that the author didn't even try to analyze why these people weren't working and instead just went into a rant about how they're destroying society by living lives of pure pleasure. How many are stay-at-home dads? How many are living with wealthy parents vs. how many are on welfare? How many of them were looking for work but eventually gave up after their efforts proved fruitless? How many of them have actual, legitimate disabilities? These are all interesting questions. And for actual disabilities, I don't think living with cystic fibrosis and being unable to work is the life of pleasure the author thinks it is.
larkinbrown 10y ago
The recent employment report was dubbed as solid by many mainstream economist. 94,391,000 were not in the work force. That's not good no matter how you try to slice or spin it !
larkinbrown 10y ago
The recent employment report was dubbed solid by many economists. 94,391,000 Americans not in the workforce is not good no matter how you try to slice or spin it !

50 points by randomname2 10y ago

Wages must rise. They have not risen for nearly four decades in real terms. Major life expenses are unaffordable to all but the wealthy, such as housing. This single fact explains lots of things in the present. It appears we're trapped in a local maximum while journalists and politicians blithely ignore the plateauing of growth, wages and technology outside of computation. If you think everything is getting better and better, you've taken your eyes off the road for a while now.

huherto 10y ago
> Wages must rise I would say that housing should be less expensive. These prices are impossible even with a good salary. You need two good salaries to buy one house and still have money for your other expenses.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  I said this somewhere else in this thread but just move to the Midwest. There is plenty of space and depending on where you want to live houses can be super cheap.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    There are many problems with moving to the Midwest. It's like someone suggesting moving to Puerto Rico to save on money since a place with a vastly different culture is not simply interchangeable (and I'm saying this as someone who has lived all over the U.S.). Edit: for the downvotes lets remember that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. and that Puerto Ricans are American (i.e. estadounidense).
    - kesselvon 10y ago
      You can have most of the amenities of coastal urban life in places like Chicago; which even has its own coast and doesn't have the outrageous COL that places like San Francisco, LA, or NYC have. Sure you're not going to make the same crazy salaries, but you're also not spending 5k for a 1br apartment in the Mission
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        What would you spend for a nice apartment by good transit?
        fovc 10y ago
        My peer group just out of college in consulting paid $1000 - $1600 for nice places. Low end of the range would be shared with 2-3 others and maybe 40 min outside the loop. High-end would be for a 1BR 15-20 min out. You could also live in West Loop (think lofts) in brand new places for even less
        jdavis703 10y ago
        I imagine that heating and electric adds a couple hundred though? (in CA I pay about $20/month for gas/electric, but remember paying hundreds when I lived back east).
        vonmoltke 10y ago
        > in CA I pay about $20/month for gas/electric How the hell do you pay so little? I pay $25/month just to have a gas connection.
        jdavis703 10y ago
        I'm rarely home and have a small studio apartment. I don't have AC (most homes I know don't have it in Oakland), and there's almost no point in running fans when I'm gone.
  - pnathan 10y ago
    Far too many race and culture issues in the Midwest IMO. Not to mention lack of software jobs & economy propped up by ag cycles & federal farm bills. Lots of articles about the issues in rural America, won't repeat them here. Much rather live in Seattle, NYC, Boston, etc. Much better living, profoundly more jobs (both in number and variety), far better culture, better politics, much more environmentally friendly.
    - amyjess 10y ago
      I live and work in the suburbs of Dallas. I'm also an openly LGBT Jew, and nobody gives me any problem. And the large Asian populations (Chinese, Indian, and Korean especially) in the suburbs here shows that lots of people of other races choose to live here over other places in the country. It's debatable over whether or not North Texas counts as "the midwest" (really, Texas can be divided into five sections, which go into separate regions), but I like to think of it as such. We're in Tornado Alley, and most of Dallas feels like a typical middle-American suburb.
      - pnathan 10y ago
        I am pretty sure everyone agrees Texas is a different country. ;-) TBH I've heard Texas has a pleasingly libertarian vibe about many personal choices, but you are required to love HS football.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  What I don't understand is why the government isn't building housing to sell. You'd put workers back to work, and prevent some of these crazy expensive prices. It seems like all developers want to build are mcmansions and luxury apartments they can sell for tremendous profits. Where are the cheap starter homes and condos?
  - prostoalex 10y ago
    The price tag on the final construction is defined by three things - cost of land, cost of labor, and cost or building materials (which includes things such as equipment rentals). Where would a government construction company experience massive price advantage that cannot be replicated by a private entity? Their cost of equipment is same as everybody else's, their labor costs are probably higher due to extra layers of bureaucracy and stronger union contracts.
    - jdavis703 10y ago
      There's a lot of city owned land in the Bay Area, that would effectively cost the government nothing. Not to mention abandoned lots that should face stiff liens, and eventual seizure if nothing is done about it. Then they contract with the same builders that the private sector uses. But instead of building apartments with granite countertops and bathtubs with water jets, they use simple finishings (or just don't finish things at all, like in my apartment, the floor is polished concrete and the ceilings reveal the structural elements).
      - prostoalex 10y ago
        The primary reason for housing shortage is not real estate developer laziness and apathy. If Vegas, Florida or empty Chinese towns taught us anything, developers will build given a chance to appropriate a large budget or a cheap loan. How much of that city owned land is zoned residential, has no building restrictions and is set up for electricity, gas, water and roads? Most developers also present a choice of finishings, if you're committing to a brand-new construction, where one can go from custom Italian marble to basically nothing. KB Homes and Lennar are particularly known for no-frills simpler-designs cheaper units, check out South or East San Jose and anywhere in Morgan Hill / Gilroy vicinity.
- edc117 10y ago
  Except the government has basically made it their priority to prop up the existing housing prices as much as possible, and keep it that way. For every young person desperate for an affordable house, there is an older person that is counting on their house's current value to be able to retire. It's a mess.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    I really don't understand how that works. You can't (reasonably) sell the siding and plumbing in your house for groceries and medical bills... So how do people use their house for retirement (you know besides not paying rent or mortgage)?
    - huherto 10y ago
      It is a mirage. You think you are making money but you cannot use it. Unless you retire in an inexpensive place. Or die. You will have a lot of money when you die and can sell your house.
    - fovc 10y ago
      You go to the bank and say "my neighbor's house just sold for $X. My house is better. Can I have a loan for $X * .8?" Also see reverse mortgages [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mortgage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_mortgage
      - jdavis703 10y ago
        But that's only a few hundred thousand dollars, probably for one time though?
      - huherto 10y ago
        So you can extend your credit. But you still have to pay that. You don't get to spend that money.
    - prostoalex 10y ago
      Via a HELOC or a reverse mortgage, which becomes a thing for people 70 and older. Alternatively, selling to cash out and move to some spot favored by American retirees, such as Costa Rica or Palma de Mallorca, where the dollar (as well as Social Security check) goes much further.
- a_thro_away 10y ago
  Agreed, but your local governments will not let that happen because they want your money. They fight every single day to maintain a false market value of your house, basing its value simply upon the few percent who are willing or able to pay an ever upwards higher prices. A value based upon construction labor rates that skyrocket because of their daily increasing mandated certifications, insurances and fees and taxes and laws, and a value based on construction materials subject to more of their certifications and upwards marching specifications (a 5 inch well for four people? while water usage per person is halved during the same period?). And finally, by them "adding taxable value" to your property (at your cost), for example, by forcing new massively expensive sewer and water systems, often, because historically they permitted very small lots. When those lots have sanitary problems and the land value falls low, they won't let go of the tax money from those properties, instead, charging everyone to upgrade the entire infrastructure at massive costs (for which they then get an admin fee forever, as well as keeping the taxes). Finally, outsourcing the infra. services to a third party, at what, cost plus? No, housing will never get cheaper.
- internaut 10y ago
  Even if house prices were not so inflated wages would still be stagnant. That's a much bigger problem for the economy than house prices because it is harder to solve for. Reasonable house prices are just a solution to the most immediate problem facing us today, that is all. Judging by the downvotes, many people are totally in denial about this. It is pathetic. I'm a red blood tooth and nail capitalist. If I say wage stagnation is real you had better believe it.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
If you'd like wages to rise, ban non-wage compensation (e.g. health insurance) rather than subsidizing it. Compensation has risen consistently, it's just been mostly (untaxed) non-wage compensation. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB
- internaut 10y ago
  I have strong doubts about this. It is not that I don't believe non-wage compensation exists, it is that the same pattern exists in most other Western countries, not just America. It tends to begin a decade or so later in my own country and others (explained by us playing economic catch-up), but it is the same pattern. You can't explain this with a little redistribution here or there. Remember we're talking about (in this article's context) mostly younger people bearing the brunt of this, so it is not as if they are incurring major medical bills on average, thereby not requiring that health subsidy, so that is a hypothetical rather than a fact. I suspect this is all better explained by lack of technological change (ex-computation) with logical follow through in the growth statistics and wages. Let me give you an anecdote. Most graduated students from universities make less income per year than I did from my summer job. Read that twice. And I wasn't making much more than min wage at the time. That can partly be explained by oversupply, but fundamentally this is such a contradiction to the education/wealth meme (go to Yale or go to Jail, you don't want to get a job at Mikky-Ds) that it has slipped under most older people's radar altogether. The fact is actually that most college students would have been better off working minimum wage, living with their parents. They would be in a considerably better position today if that had taken that advice. This is changing rapidly, more people are waking up to the realities of the job markets. There is no longer any point in going to college. The jobs just don't pay enough for it to make any sense. I went to an elite university and I'm saying it. People who have the good fortune to have rich parents should not be counted as part of the statistics because there is a limit to the number of people who can work internships from Dad's townhouse in the most expensive cities in the world. You adjust ROI for cost of living and you quickly discover any students in 'good jobs' have wealthy parents capable of covering their living expenses in places like London, New York. This was not always the case, but it is now. Today's intelligent student is better off starting their own company. Not because it is easy or likely to succeed, but because they are all out of options.
internaut 10y ago
Dear Downvoter > They have not risen for nearly four decades in real terms. This is a fact. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/09/for-most-wor... Do your god damn research.
- sctb 10y ago
  The guidelines ask you not to do this, so please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - internaut 10y ago
    Alright. I was having a 'people are wrong on the internet' moment. What does get my goat though is that a comment can spin off a hundred replies and the initial comment is invisible. I've seen it happen a few times now to other people. It is controversy/mystery and then a back and forth without context and I find myself highlighting the initial comments to discover what actually happened. It even happens to the OP's initial statement! Blank and a slew of comments. That might be the flamewar detector in action though. That seems like a flaw in the algorithm. If the thread is worth reading instead of a flamewar then surely the initial comment ought to be (more likely to be) visible for reading? I get that the initial comment could be nonsensical and the offspring of it could be still useful but it seems weird since those replies wouldn't have happened without it. You've heard the saying that it is easier to get good information by saying something wrong on the Net and being corrected, rather than by requesting said information. Seems like the present algorithm goes against a 'Law of the Internet'.

fengb 10y ago

Stay-at-home dads explains 2 million of this article's main statistic. So even if the remaining 5 million of the "needs work", the employment number is closer to 89%. Edit: there's a reason economists usually use "looking for work" for unemployment numbers: it's really hard to gauge why people don't look for work.

prostoalex 10y ago
Stay-at-home by choice and stay-at-home due to inability to find gainful employment are very different demographics, though. http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319214546/stay-at-home-dads-on-the-rise-and-many-of-them-are-poor http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319214546/stay-at-home-dads-on...

jschwartzi 10y ago

Is it truly a flight from work? I think most of those men would work jobs if they A) existed and B) paid better than disability.

antisthenes 10y ago
There are many many things wrong with the article (elementary mistakes that a Harvard economist should not have made), but considering that it is basically a puff piece for his book, I'm not surprised in the slightest. The article is typical WSJ garbage, gets cause and effect confused, makes comical, out-of-touch assumptions and, as usual, places the burden and fault on NEETs.
prostoalex 10y ago
> They tend to be: 1) less educated; Unless they luck out and find themselves amidst a housing bubble circa 2006 where everyone and their brother is employed in constructing real estate, investing in real estateo, transacting in real estate on commission basis, underwriting mortgages for real estate or pitching dubious mortgages for others to buy real estate, there's not a lot of opportunities for under-educated males nowadays.

ollerac 10y ago

Google link to get around the paywall: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj23bGW7fDOAhUCgx4KHU15DbcQqQIIHzAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-idle-army-americas-unworking-men-1472769641&usg=AFQjCNHk0rKbh-8VWT7QvcQJEyZA2JZ8qQ&sig2=1IpLylmM38cmnuOEaFR9gw https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

eric_h 10y ago
Best used in an incognito window if you've already clicked the direct link.

susan_hall 10y ago

This is an interesting opening, coming from the Wall Street Journal: "Millions of young males have left the workforce and civic life. Full employment? The U.S. isn’t even close." If the USA is not close to full employment, then the USA does not have to work about inflation. And yet, in other commentary, the Wall Street Journal has been obsessed with the risk of inflation, for many years now. They have urged the Fed to raise rates to head off a surge in inflation. But if there is hidden unemployment, then rates can remain low longer, with little risk of inflation.

hx87 10y ago
Inflation can still happen in sectors that have both investment-like and consumption-like qualities, such as real estate, when massive amounts of investment capital try to look for safe and/or high-yielding havens.
- bsbechtel 10y ago
  Or the stock market, which keeps hitting all time highs despite anemic economic growth.
douche 10y ago
I would think, when the labor force participation rate is 62%, and there are 94 million out of the work force, it's pretty obvious that there is a lot of unemployment. Granted, included in that number are the elderly and retired, but that's still a lot of people. The thing with inflation, is that its not broad-based, 1930s-fill-a-wheelbarrow-with-Deutschmarks-for-a-loaf-of-bread inflation, it's inflation in some sectors and deflation in others. Housing, education and health care are going through the roof, but groceries and consumer goods are staying about the same or getting cheaper, and gasoline and heating costs are the lowest they've been in a decade or more.
pjc50 10y ago
Indeed - as Krugman keeps going on about, there's little risk of "classical" inflation. What there is is a lot of complaining from the rentier class (and some of the better off pensioners) that they can't make 4% for doing nothing any more.

speeder 10y ago

I have the impression the article got the cause and effect ordering confused. It states for example on one paragraph, that the men not working, exacerbate family breakdown. As someone in my 28s having lots of problems like in the article, I can personally claim, that for me, and all my friends, it is the other way around: Creating a family in the current society, is almost impossible, two incomes is necessary, thus reducing time available to take care of kids, divorce is too easy, making it too risky for men (in my country, 72% of "no-fault" divorces were initiated by women for example), young women are not interested in serious relationships (instead they are interested in having fun, one-night stands, drinking, sex, etc...) because it gets in the way of having a career. So, because of all this, starting a family, even if you really, really want it, is excessively hard. So... why bother? Why put a massive effort to work your ass off, if you won't have anything to do with the money? Alright, you go and work 60 hours/week, save money... and now what? Buy a house, to live in it alone? Buy a car, that doesn't fit your parents garage that has their car already? Or buy videogames that you can't play because you work 60 hours/week? It is logical, that the thing to be done, is do the mininum necessary to support a loner lifestyle, this is not my case (far from it), but I've met people where their current simple non-creative jobs can pay for international trips, restaurants and prostitutes, but are still too far from supporting a family, so... why not just stay where they are, and enjoy international trips, restaurants and prostitutes? Why work so hard to not have any leisure time, if the result would be reach old age alone, rich, and with nothing to spend that money with and no friends? EDIT: people are making some assumptions about me and understanding this wrong. So to clear things up: 1. I am more of a exception guy, I don't like one night stands and whatnot, and don't go to bars or clubs, I look for women in my social circle, that is academia, workplaces (related to tech, always), and church. The women I described is what I saw there, maybe women elsewhere are different. 2. I am from Brazil, sometimes I forget how confortable life in US is in general, many people replied that you don't need two-person income if you have a non-luxurious life, here in Brazil, the US "middle-class" life, of having two cars for example, is only for rich people, most of the population can't afford even a single car (I for example don't own a car, even if I summed all my income of the last 5 years, I would still not have enough for a car), here two-person income is necessary even if you are going to live in a favela shack with walls made of discarded wood and roof tiles, I just assumed this was the case for most of US too. I would love some detailed information if that is true, or not. 3. From what I've heard, housing, healthcare, and some other basic necessities are very expensive in US in general, housing is very expensive in Brazil too, even if bad quality "supermarket" food is cheap, you can't start a family with a single income if you can't afford housing and healthcare, for example if your kids get sick, how you will pay for it? Even here in Brazil where the state gives completely free healthcare, people still consider it too risky to not have healthcare money, sometimes your kid need something now and you don't have time to wait the state. 4. Some people reading the text are assuming I am a NEET myself... that is not the case, I just find myself seriously tempted to do so though (because I am trying, very hard, to get money to start a family, yet I never got a legal job, and so far my total net worth is negative, some months I paid more in interest than the monthly mininum wage)

parennoob 10y ago

Note that the article has the word "women" in it only twice (and in an inconsequential sentence); and the word "female" 0 times. Discussing the unemployment levels of men in America without taking into account the vast sociological changes involving the genders in the last 20-30 years e.g. a lot more women in the workforce, societal expectations of more parenting involvement from men, etc.) is not much use unless you are trying on some sort of strange shaming tactic on men. FWIW I don't think the author is doing this intentionally.

googletazer 10y ago

Vast majority of these "unworking men" are employed in the underground economy, working under the table, which provides a subsistence living. Perhaps only 10% are true NEETs with recognized disabilities/parents wealthy enough to carry them. I don't see it as a good or a bad thing - society has reorganized itself and there is no place for these people anymore. With greater and greater levels of automation the problem is only going to get worse. 30% of people find it hard to do math beyond 8th grade, where would they fit in the modern economy? Furthermore if you start from the very bottom, some people will struggle and succeed, but most will give up - whats the point anyway? Living a minimalist lifestyle supporting your own limited needs beats working for Amazon and keeling over at 35 with a heart attack. Seems as if success and fulfillment in modern society is on the edges of the distribution - either you're a minimalistic bum or balls to the wall businessman.

taxicabjesus 10y ago

Early one morning I got a fare at a house at the southern edge of Chandler. It was a young family - Man, Woman, Infant. They were going to the airport... The man said that he'd tried driving for the taxi company, but it didn't work for him. I had various other passengers who'd also tried their hand at taxi driving, and couldn't make money. The traditional model for running a taxi service involves leasing cabs out for 12 hour shifts. Drivers have to work as much of those 12 hours to maximize their income. The first couple hours pay for the lease. An hour or two pays for gas. The last few hours are when you pay yourself. This passenger had started driving for the Venture Capitalists' "not-a-taxi" business, and he thought it was great. The venture capitalists' business taps into the vast hoards of people who aren't good employee material, and those who want to supplement their income. But the money wasn't really enough for this passenger - he was working on a way to increase his income. After expenses, driving for the venture capitalists is the same as driving for the taxi company: they're both low-skill minimum-wage jobs. It was a very nice neighborhood... I imagined that this family had support from their parents to be able to live there. When I was talking to my ex-wife yesterday, she pointed out that I value freedom more than anything else. This is why I was drawn to taxi driving, and why I stuck with it for so long. The taxi company had their dress code, and standards. They didn't care what I did with their taxi, as long as I paid them at the end of the shift. I could have found a regular JOB, but I enjoyed the adventure of going new places every day, and meeting new people every day, and occasionally being sent to help someone who needed more than just a ride. JOB is a backronym that stands for "Just Over Broke". My income from taxi driving was enough to finance my entrepreneurial ambitions. The only "real job" I've had was working for Amazon [1]. I worked at a summer camp when I was 12 or 13. After I graduated from teh college with a "B.S." Computer Science degree (it is an expensive piece of paper that hangs on my father's wall), I worked at various family-owned businesses, and helped take care of my grandparents... I am not well-suited to being an employee. Now that I don't drive around in the taxi anymore, I'm thinking about applying for the IT department at the local hospital... Recently I went to visit a friend in the ER, and this fellow was swapping out a scanner, so I struck up a conversation... It'd be a temporary gig. [1] http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best-hope/ http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best-hope/

hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago

This is something that I'm worried about. I'm three years out of college and in my (very small) group of friends, two of us have full time ccorporate (middle class) jobs, one is starting his second masters degree, one is a part time personal trainer, and one is doing seasonal work at a farm. All of them have college degrees and all of them express interest in entrepreneurship and start-up culture. I think there is a problem with these guys (and myself) of being content with a bottom of the ladder corporate job. We all feel like we should be having more of an impact on our world and our jobs. I can't decide if this is a misplaced feeling of entitlement or a legitimate want of a "good" job that provides professional satisfaction.

mattmanser 10y ago
I remember leaving uni in 2003, for 3-5 years everyone had shitty jobs, bottom of the ladder and then it suddenly just changed. The first few years of work young people are usually a complete mixed bag, even if gifted. They need quite a lot of baby-sitting, tolerance and guidance from co-workers and bosses and make silly mistakes and usually are quite poor at communicating. It's all part of growing up. I can look back and realise that in myself back then. And then it changes and you start getting promotions and then it's all different. So don't judge anything by where you all are now, give it another 2 or 3 years. I know it sounds trite and patronizing, but it's true. It's one of the reasons I'm always surprised pg, Thiel, etc. pushed for people to start companies straight out of college or even while in college. Young people are often so utterly clueless that I think a lot of the mistakes they make could just be fixed by them working for someone else for a little bit, even 6 months. As well solving the tendency for hip young entrepreneurs to make incredibly basic HR mistakes.

amyjess 10y ago

I'm really disappointed that the author didn't even try to analyze why these people weren't working and instead just went into a rant about how they're destroying society by living lives of pure pleasure. How many are stay-at-home dads? How many are living with wealthy parents vs. how many are on welfare? How many of them were looking for work but eventually gave up after their efforts proved fruitless? How many of them have actual, legitimate disabilities? These are all interesting questions. And for actual disabilities, I don't think living with cystic fibrosis and being unable to work is the life of pleasure the author thinks it is.

larkinbrown 10y ago

The recent employment report was dubbed as solid by many mainstream economist. 94,391,000 were not in the work force. That's not good no matter how you try to slice or spin it !

larkinbrown 10y ago

The recent employment report was dubbed solid by many economists. 94,391,000 Americans not in the workforce is not good no matter how you try to slice or spin it !