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Sorry, did you get that "80% of poor people don't want to work" figure by dividing the number of working poor by the total number of poor people from that repor
by macrael 16y ago
Sorry, did you get that "80% of poor people don't want to work" figure by dividing the number of working poor by the total number of poor people from that report you linked to?[1] I didn't see any information in that study pertaining to motivation or desire. Just because 75% of people below the poverty line were not employed for half the year does not mean that they did not want to be.
[1] http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2008.pdf
- yummyfajitas 16y agoJust because 75% of people below the poverty line were not employed for half the year... Go read the first 3 sentences of the report. That includes clauses inside parenthesis.
- macrael 16y agoQuite right you are. I still take some issue with the idea that 75% of the poor don't want to work. The report is not entirely clear on what it means to be "looking for work", and it's hard to know what different motivations are driving that 10% of the american population. But, absent data, I will concede the point.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work." More details: http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm By the way, didn't mean to sound hostile in my last post. I think I came across a little stronger than I meant.