5 ms·

It's not evidence. It's an anecdotal counter-point to an unfounded and all-to-common lazy characterization. Feel free to look up any number of sociological an

by roc 16y ago

It's not evidence. It's an anecdotal counter-point to an unfounded and all-to-common lazy characterization. Feel free to look up any number of sociological and economic studies about what happens to people who are on unemployment. Suicide rises, separation rises (divorce itself tends not to, as divorce is expensive), domestic abuse rises, savings plummet, bankruptcy rises, foreclosure rises, future earnings drop. The studies have shown that it looks nothing like party time in the aggregate. But somehow that doesn't stop people moralizing from a privileged vantage. Edit: Frankly, it's just the same damn Welfare Queen argument all over again and I keep hoping that nonsense was long since disproved and buried, back with Trickle Down and the rest of Reagan's 'conservative' fiscal bonafides.

presidentender 16y ago
>It's not evidence. In fairness, neither is yours. My anecdotes regarding the unemployed match GP poster, not yours. For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time." I do not claim that my anecdotal information is data on which to base policy decisions.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  Actually, they're both evidence. What count are their respective strength. Nevertheless, your data point suggest we could characterize the "partying unemployed". I'd guess these people are mostly, young, middle class, don't have any family to feed, and can count on their parents to back them up if they really mess up. (Some of these factors are of course correlated by causation links.)
  - presidentender 16y ago
    Mine are entirely young, lower-class, and without family. They've all been students in the recent past, which corresponds to an inexpensive lifestyle... and they still get the same amount of unemployment as anyone else. One particularly striking example is a fellow who works summers fighting fires for the forest service, and is "unemployed" the rest of the year. It's not a safety net or insurance in his case, it's planned (I'm unsure as to whether he's able to do this repeatedly, or only for the one year).
- roc 16y ago
  > "In fairness, neither is yours. " That's what I said. At least,that's what I meant to say. Trying again: My post is not and was not meant to be 'evidence'. It's just a (somewhat exasperated) refusal to swallow Greenspun's characterization of 'unemployment==party time' without any support. > "For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time."" And from the outside, many knowledge jobs can appear to be "party time" too. If I had a nickle for every time I heard someone characterize my job as "just sitting at a desk" or "surfing the internet all day", I could enjoy some party-time. The point being: if someone is going to cast aspersions from the outside, they should probably bring more than some selective reporting highlights and appeals to "what we all know".
jessriedel 16y ago
I think idleness, xbox, unhappiness, and suicide are all compatible (in fact, reinforcing). In other words, I don't think the friend I mentioned was particularly happy. Unless I'm grossly misinterpreting, you are constructing quite the straw man of the argument against long-term unemployment benefits. People who are skeptical aren't bothered because they think the unemployed are "too happy", they're bothered by the fact that the unemployed will have no direct incentive to find work. In fact, even the OP (who's post I think is stupid) doesn't characterize the unemployed as happy.
- jarek 16y ago
  Receiving barely enough to pay the bills, if that, that will soon end is not a direct incentive to find work in your book? Most people out there don't find new jobs in two weeks. Your friend could have afforded party time during the benefits period - once this run out, how long was he living off previous savings or external support?
  - jessriedel 16y ago
    It's the "soon end" part that's important. I'm not arguing against all unemployment benefits, I'm describing the argument against long-term benefits. My friend was living off solely unemployment benefits for over a year.
    - jarek 16y ago
      Interesting -- was he living with parents? My impression was, and the comments here seem to confirm, that most (all?) U.S. unemployment payouts aren't really enough to live on carefree while casually paying slope fees.
      - jessriedel 16y ago
        No he was not. He was living in a house with his own room and one or two other roommates. From page 7 of this http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1275a.pdf http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1275a.pdf I believe that if you make $47k or more in the year leading up to your unemployment (technically, if you made more than $11.6k in the highest quarter of that year), your benefits are $450/week or $1900/month or $23,464/year. Raising a family of 4 on that would be challenging, but it's easily enough to live carefree in Santa Barbara, CA (where I lived, with one of the highest housing prices in the US) as a 26 year-old bachelor while paying $500 for a skiing season pass and several hundred dollars per year in mountain biking repair costs. (Both he and I were avid mountain bikers; trails are usually free, but the repairs weren't.) I took home $1600/month as a grad student while saving money and frequenting cheap bars, so I know this is very easily lived on. Of Course, I didn't have quite as much free time for boarding and biking as he did.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
It would be useful if, rather than offering vague assertions that statistics exist, you actually presented some. The simplest way to determine whether unemployment induces people to consume leisure: measure whether changes in the duration of unemployment benefits affect the duration of unemployment. Do you know of any such measurements, or are you simply assuming that reality supports your views? Edit: The classic paper on this topic is Meyer, but it's a bit old. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:www.econ.upenn.edu/~hfang/teaching/socialinsurance/readings/Meyer90(4.12).pdf+%22unemployment+insurance+and+unemployment+spells%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESijVugfxTMH8N17GpSU_u2JvA9mKUnU2-0yEbjnU4nwsZzfb6xylzJiPCE7EUAmsWycAgt74ZcB3dWYw4wZ-JRBbT5DLbajcMt_A0VhvZTgz74ppJlG27NwAeZXcun3IjfAtx70&sig=AHIEtbRr14Z-jKd0rYrZD25qNSBSVWlWEg http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:w... This paper strongly supports the theory that unemployment benefits create moral hazard. Here is a more recent paper showing the same thing in Europe, after a natural experiment: http://ftp.iza.org/dp2171.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp2171.pdf
- tptacek 16y ago
  There are indeed studies that indicate a positive correlation between duration of benefits and subsequent employment stability (ie, that giving people a longer cushion within which to find a job allows them to find better jobs). I'm sure you could reply with a study that supports your point of view. This thread would then get very boring, as few of us are qualified to vet the studies. It is, however, not very compelling to argue the lack of empiricism in a comment thread on a Greenspun article that takes as a premise the idea that people are spending 99 months playing government-sponsored Xbox. Maybe not so much with the high horse with you, on this particular thread.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    giving people a longer cushion within which to find a job allows them to find better jobs Actually, the second study I linked to (from iza.org) argues against that claim. I don't endorse that paper (not familiar with it), but you are welcome to take a look if you are actually curious about it. Of course, feel free to skip that step if empirics bore you. Note that roc was the one who smugly appealed to empiricism, but provided none in his post: "The studies have shown that it looks nothing like party time in the aggregate." Precisely 0 lines of his post provided empirical facts, but 2 lines (of 4) were devoted to attempts to lower the status of people who disagree with him: "moralizing from a privileged vantage...Welfare Queen...Trickle Down...Reagan's 'conservative'..." I'm just pointing out that it [edit: attacking one's opponents] adds nothing of value to the conversation.
barry-cotter 16y ago
The singular of anecdote is update, the plural of anecdote is update more. Bad evidence is nt the same thing as no evidence. Would you go back to a restaurant you'd never been to before if you got food poisoning the evening after eating there?
roc 16y ago
To be clear, "It's not evidence" was meant to refer to my original post. My original post was never intended to be taken as "evidence" and I absolutely agree that it isn't.

by roc 16y ago

presidentender 16y ago

>It's not evidence. In fairness, neither is yours. My anecdotes regarding the unemployed match GP poster, not yours. For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time." I do not claim that my anecdotal information is data on which to base policy decisions.

loup-vaillant 16y ago
Actually, they're both evidence. What count are their respective strength. Nevertheless, your data point suggest we could characterize the "partying unemployed". I'd guess these people are mostly, young, middle class, don't have any family to feed, and can count on their parents to back them up if they really mess up. (Some of these factors are of course correlated by causation links.)
- presidentender 16y ago
  Mine are entirely young, lower-class, and without family. They've all been students in the recent past, which corresponds to an inexpensive lifestyle... and they still get the same amount of unemployment as anyone else. One particularly striking example is a fellow who works summers fighting fires for the forest service, and is "unemployed" the rest of the year. It's not a safety net or insurance in his case, it's planned (I'm unsure as to whether he's able to do this repeatedly, or only for the one year).
roc 16y ago
> "In fairness, neither is yours. " That's what I said. At least,that's what I meant to say. Trying again: My post is not and was not meant to be 'evidence'. It's just a (somewhat exasperated) refusal to swallow Greenspun's characterization of 'unemployment==party time' without any support. > "For the unemployed young I've known, it is "party time."" And from the outside, many knowledge jobs can appear to be "party time" too. If I had a nickle for every time I heard someone characterize my job as "just sitting at a desk" or "surfing the internet all day", I could enjoy some party-time. The point being: if someone is going to cast aspersions from the outside, they should probably bring more than some selective reporting highlights and appeals to "what we all know".

jessriedel 16y ago

I think idleness, xbox, unhappiness, and suicide are all compatible (in fact, reinforcing). In other words, I don't think the friend I mentioned was particularly happy. Unless I'm grossly misinterpreting, you are constructing quite the straw man of the argument against long-term unemployment benefits. People who are skeptical aren't bothered because they think the unemployed are "too happy", they're bothered by the fact that the unemployed will have no direct incentive to find work. In fact, even the OP (who's post I think is stupid) doesn't characterize the unemployed as happy.

jarek 16y ago
Receiving barely enough to pay the bills, if that, that will soon end is not a direct incentive to find work in your book? Most people out there don't find new jobs in two weeks. Your friend could have afforded party time during the benefits period - once this run out, how long was he living off previous savings or external support?
- jessriedel 16y ago
  It's the "soon end" part that's important. I'm not arguing against all unemployment benefits, I'm describing the argument against long-term benefits. My friend was living off solely unemployment benefits for over a year.
  - jarek 16y ago
    Interesting -- was he living with parents? My impression was, and the comments here seem to confirm, that most (all?) U.S. unemployment payouts aren't really enough to live on carefree while casually paying slope fees.
    - jessriedel 16y ago
      No he was not. He was living in a house with his own room and one or two other roommates. From page 7 of this http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1275a.pdf http://www.edd.ca.gov/pdf_pub_ctr/de1275a.pdf I believe that if you make $47k or more in the year leading up to your unemployment (technically, if you made more than $11.6k in the highest quarter of that year), your benefits are $450/week or $1900/month or $23,464/year. Raising a family of 4 on that would be challenging, but it's easily enough to live carefree in Santa Barbara, CA (where I lived, with one of the highest housing prices in the US) as a 26 year-old bachelor while paying $500 for a skiing season pass and several hundred dollars per year in mountain biking repair costs. (Both he and I were avid mountain bikers; trails are usually free, but the repairs weren't.) I took home $1600/month as a grad student while saving money and frequenting cheap bars, so I know this is very easily lived on. Of Course, I didn't have quite as much free time for boarding and biking as he did.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

It would be useful if, rather than offering vague assertions that statistics exist, you actually presented some. The simplest way to determine whether unemployment induces people to consume leisure: measure whether changes in the duration of unemployment benefits affect the duration of unemployment. Do you know of any such measurements, or are you simply assuming that reality supports your views? Edit: The classic paper on this topic is Meyer, but it's a bit old. http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:www.econ.upenn.edu/~hfang/teaching/socialinsurance/readings/Meyer90(4.12).pdf+%22unemployment+insurance+and+unemployment+spells%22&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESijVugfxTMH8N17GpSU_u2JvA9mKUnU2-0yEbjnU4nwsZzfb6xylzJiPCE7EUAmsWycAgt74ZcB3dWYw4wZ-JRBbT5DLbajcMt_A0VhvZTgz74ppJlG27NwAeZXcun3IjfAtx70&sig=AHIEtbRr14Z-jKd0rYrZD25qNSBSVWlWEg http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:xdATBYGtHBcJ:w... This paper strongly supports the theory that unemployment benefits create moral hazard. Here is a more recent paper showing the same thing in Europe, after a natural experiment: http://ftp.iza.org/dp2171.pdf http://ftp.iza.org/dp2171.pdf

tptacek 16y ago
There are indeed studies that indicate a positive correlation between duration of benefits and subsequent employment stability (ie, that giving people a longer cushion within which to find a job allows them to find better jobs). I'm sure you could reply with a study that supports your point of view. This thread would then get very boring, as few of us are qualified to vet the studies. It is, however, not very compelling to argue the lack of empiricism in a comment thread on a Greenspun article that takes as a premise the idea that people are spending 99 months playing government-sponsored Xbox. Maybe not so much with the high horse with you, on this particular thread.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  giving people a longer cushion within which to find a job allows them to find better jobs Actually, the second study I linked to (from iza.org) argues against that claim. I don't endorse that paper (not familiar with it), but you are welcome to take a look if you are actually curious about it. Of course, feel free to skip that step if empirics bore you. Note that roc was the one who smugly appealed to empiricism, but provided none in his post: "The studies have shown that it looks nothing like party time in the aggregate." Precisely 0 lines of his post provided empirical facts, but 2 lines (of 4) were devoted to attempts to lower the status of people who disagree with him: "moralizing from a privileged vantage...Welfare Queen...Trickle Down...Reagan's 'conservative'..." I'm just pointing out that it [edit: attacking one's opponents] adds nothing of value to the conversation.

barry-cotter 16y ago

The singular of anecdote is update, the plural of anecdote is update more. Bad evidence is nt the same thing as no evidence. Would you go back to a restaurant you'd never been to before if you got food poisoning the evening after eating there?

roc 16y ago

To be clear, "It's not evidence" was meant to refer to my original post. My original post was never intended to be taken as "evidence" and I absolutely agree that it isn't.