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There is no missing piece, because the first part of your statement isn't backed by fact. There's not a big dark pool of people who can't find jobs. The secon
by stuckagain 10y ago
There is no missing piece, because the first part of your statement isn't backed by fact. There's not a big dark pool of people who can't find jobs. The second part of your first sentence is maybe true, but maybe not. In surveys of Americans most people feel positive about their economic circumstances, at every level of income. 75-80% of Americans report they feel their job is secure[1].
1: http://kff.org/report-section/kaiser-family-foundationcnn-working-class-whites-poll-section-1-conventional-wisdom/ http://kff.org/report-section/kaiser-family-foundationcnn-wo...
- jellicle 10y agoOther than the 3% of all workers who have become permanently discouraged workers in the past decade, you mean? http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 It's only 5 million people or so, so I guess you're saying that's not "big".
- zhivota 10y agoExpand the graph back to 1948, where it starts, and you'll see labor participation is higher now than it was from 1948-1984. So it's not that simple, unfortunately.
- madengr 10y agoBack then, 1 income could raise a family. The participation was not needed.
- stuckagain 10y agoThat process runs both ways. When the economy is doing better, labor participation can go down due to incomes going up. The grandparent pinned the qualitative judgement "permanently discouraged" upon this graph, but that's just one way to read it.