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The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51
- corporateslave5 6y agoMost high income jobs in this country are performed by foreigners. I have data to prove this, scraped all of the top firms LinkedIn’s. The labor force in the USA is way more hollow than this data even shows. It’s harrowing to see how few American college graduates enter roles that have a bright future. I am currently working on a website to expose the reality of American employment. Other factor here is the fed printing money to inflate financial assets, making the rich richer and driving up the housing market. Ultra capitalist policies by the left and right to completely outsource American jobs. The effects of all of these have not been realized yet. But they will. We’re 15 years off from real crises when both the left and right middle class populations realize they’ve been had
- kickopotomus 6y ago> Most high income jobs in this country are performed by foreigners. Citation? There are only about 3 million H1B visa holders in the US. The remaining ~120 million workers are citizens or immigrants in non-specialized work.
- yeetawayhn 6y agoCommenter specified "high income jobs" of which only a small portion of the ~120 million qualifies.
- kickopotomus 6y ago19% of US households are considered "high-income"[1]. H1B visas only account for ~2.5% of the workforce. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-are-you.aspx https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-incom...
- sytelus 6y agoIn broad terms, USA is largely funded by global economy. This is done by setting US$ as master currency, so in effect, America's biggest export is dollar that gets consumed by rest of the world. When Fed prints out $6T, the inflation transfers to rest of the world and little to US. The ownership of US$ allows Americans to buy expensive goods manufactured by labor and materials in rest of the world by merely manufacturing currency as primary export. I think it is possible that in future, Americans don't have to work and rely completely on their export of US$ as world currency. The global currency must be protected military might and a constitution that allows for fairness, justice and ability to challenge authority. This is necessary for the trust and stability in global economics. The country owning the global currency would also need to setup military restrictions so that other countries may not be allowed to match military power. All this might look bad but it is truly an economic service that is needed to be provided by someone. US citizens job is then to protect constitution, military powers and the currency. For that job, they get goods and services from rest of the world. As merely 5% of population is engaged in providing this economic service, it is probably not an inefficient either.
- nine_zeros 6y agoGood points. But will the real manufacturers goods, and now tech, accept such a currency in the future? Especially, in the light of erratic political leadership that could renege on agreements and impose sanctions unilaterally??
- maurimo 6y agoVery interesting comment. That being the case, the biggest fallacy is the ability of challenging the authority, as long as the US politics are protected by US sovereignty (even if they involve and affect the rest of the world).
- sytelus 6y agoYou don't have to be perfect every day, you just need to be better than everyone else averaged over some long period of time.
- 6y ago
- djdule 6y agoWhen you say "Americans", do you refer to US, North America or both Americas (North and South) ?
- mmm_grayons 6y agoI'm pretty sure you know to what it refers and are just trying to make a point/start an argument. "American" is the only demonym of which I'm aware for a resident of the United States of America. Rarely (if ever) does someone require a demonym for residents of two continents, and I don't think I've ever heard someone use "American" to refer to a resident of "the Americas" outside of an irate non-American.
- FabHK 6y agoThe article headline was more precise though ("Almost half of the U.S. population does not have a job"), so here editorialising made the headline worse in at least one respect.
- mmm_grayons 6y agoThe title was actually changed because a bunch of people thought it was sensationalized and sounded too close to a 51% unemployment rate (which isn't, "percentage of people without a job".) See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23706562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23706562
- FabHK 6y agoYes. The headline was changed for that reason, making it better in at least one respect (namely less confusing for people that do not know the distinction between unemployment rate and employment population ratio), and worse in at least one respect (replacing the specific "U.S. population" with the less precise "Americans"). As I said.
- nostromo 6y agoPut another way, 1 out of 5 jobs disappeared overnight.
- dragonwriter 6y ago10 out of 61 is 1 out of 6 (well, 6.1), not 1 out of 5. And it wasn't overnight.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoSix months is pretty "overnight" for such a change.
- monksy 6y agoHow is the economy even functioning at this point? We have half of the country being unemployeed. I know that a lot of organizations are running on the bare minimum.. but this is extreme.
- munificent 6y agoWe're burning through savings, both personal and governmental.
- thewarrior 6y agoThat everyone needs to keep working to keep the economy going isn’t some law of physics. If the people producing agree to keep producing everyone can get what they need. Atleast in theory.
- headsupernova 6y agothis is the important realization from this time. This whole thing is made up - we can organize society around a model that isn't based on forcing people to work a (many times useless) job in order to eat food and sleep somewhere.
- thewarrior 6y agoYou’d think that’s obvious. But even with this pandemic making it almost crystal clear this seems too hard to accept for most people. Capitalism is almost a religion at this point.
- monksy 6y agoYou're going to get a depression. You have to have people that can afford to purchase those items that are produced.
- coliveira 6y agoThe media considers the stock market as "the economy". They would be in tears if the stock market had lost 50% of its value, but since the Fed is buying everything, there is this crazy idea that everything is fine.
- hprotagonist 6y agonote that this counts minors, retirees, etc. pre-covid, it was 61%, so we're down 10 points in 6 months. Yikes.
- MaximumYComb 6y ago61 to 51 is huge
- glofish 6y agoeven so the title is greatly misleading as it makes it sound as if half of the population that would work cannot
- zigzaggy 6y agoExactly. I can't understand why people don't just say the thing it is, especially a thing that's already bad. Wording it like this feels very dishonest / clickbaity.
- FabHK 6y ago> just say the thing it is Well, 47.2% of the U.S. population does not have a job, and the headline was "Almost half of the U.S. population does not have a job" - what are you objecting to? (Note: that is the headline of the Axios article - I don't know what the old headline of the HN submission was.) This does not mean that the unemployment rate is 52.8% - and that is not what the headline claims. FWIW, all the main indicators show a massive spike: * Employment-Population Ratio (discussed here) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO * Labor Force Participation Rate https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART * Unemployment Rate https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE
- II2II 6y agoTwo reasons: 1. It gives an idea of how many people are being supported by means outside of regular employment. In most cases this will have some form of impact on the economy. 2. Other job figures are misleading in different ways. Job creation numbers are irrelevant unless you know how many people are seeking work. Unemployment numbers only consider the number of people actively looking for work, ignoring those who are able and willing to work but are unable to seek employment.
- aahhahahaaa 6y agoI wish we were talking more about how to support the jobless long term rather than focusing on the numbers as a signal of the apocalypse (yes, I'm being hyperbolic). Seems like an inevitability we'll have to deal with one way or another. I'm a bit of a bumpkin so I'm not familiar with various labor theory and whatnot... but in the long run we should maybe have more people working, but working less overall.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoA world where most people don't do productive labor is going to require multiple radical changes. We'll have to handle that eventually, but right this second we just don't have the social bandwidth to enact any more radical changes.
- chadlavi 6y agoif by "social bandwidth" you mean "convince people in power that they need to do something," I don't see America having much social bandwidth for anything any time soon.
- aahhahahaaa 6y agoIs it radical for the richest country in the world to make sure people who are out of work don't get evicted when the extended pandemic benefits end this month? It seems with the current political climate nothing radical can really happen at all, but there are pragmatic steps that can be taken to help ensure we can keep people fed and in their homes.
- ciarannolan 6y ago> America isn't the richest country in the world. It's a poor country with a lot of rich people.
- pphysch 6y agoWhy do people focus on aggregate unemployment metrics so much? A $10/hr job with no benefits is tremendously different than a $60K/yr job with health care. The former is not a living wage. Yet both are just "jobs" -- what does that word even imply in 2020? Even worse are "job creation numbers", proudly brought to you by Aunt Mary who works three minimum wage jobs. Is "employing" XX% of your population in virtual indentured servitude supposed to be something politicians are proud of?
- 38eueheh 6y agoLiving wage is an argument advocated by inherently privileged individuals, you can tell because a livable COL rarely comes up in the same breath. If the person is alive and doing the job it's a living wage, just because Californians don't like having to confront that their elitist policies are wildly exacerbating the cost of living doesn't mean the job should be disregarded because without it that individual would require even more support or have to leave the state (which most Californians seem fine with because there's nothing prejudice about driving out the poor apparently).
- sjg007 6y agoThere are cheap parts of California to live in, people just don't want to live in them. The real problem is that everyone wants to live in California. I do think that California should build more density but I think covid will temper that for another 10 years.
- 38eueheh 6y agoPeople wanting to live in specific parts of California is only a problem if those places are experiencing a shortage of housing. SF is experiencing a shortage because of zoning regulations like height limitations and similar is the case in SD, there is not a physical lack of land that is precipitating the problem. CoL is also more than rent, food could be cheaper if neighborhoods would quit advantaging local co-ops and eating out could be cheaper if the large cities like SD didn't outright ban cheap food options like meal carts. And that's all before addressing more ethereal aspects like the gas tax that disproportionately hits the state's middle and lower classes the hardest. California is expensive because Californians care more about principals than people.
- baybal2 6y agoThe digit may sound stunning, and shocking, but it's not really that bad with a demographic profile of USA. USA is a relatively youthful nation. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-participation-rate https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-partic... Countries with older, more experienced workforce, usually have higher employment, and are less sensitive to shocks.
- glofish 6y agodata at the link you posted claims that Slovakia had a 94% labor participation in March 2020. I find that very hard to believe.
- baybal2 6y agoIt is a scraper, but in general they have data that makes sense. What I like about them is their data is very up to date.
- tbabej 6y agoData indeed is not reliable, growing up in that area, I can say Slovakia and Czech Republic have similar demographics and employment rates, while occupy very different places in the linked data source. Here is a more reliable source from worldbank, claiming ~60% labor participation rate [1]. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.NE.ZS?locations=SK https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.NE.ZS?locat...
- realtalk_sp 6y agoYea it's not useful. This could be the result of positive forces such as more kids going to university instead of entering the work force (improvement in educational attainment) and/or people able and choosing to retire earlier OR of very negative forces, as they seem to imply. Rolling the statistics up to the population level is not the best way to look at this. They should have broken out the trends by age bracket. Pretty shoddy journalism.
- baybal2 6y ago
- programmarchy 6y agoHere's a calculation to consider. Would it be more expensive to subsidize the income of a $15/hr worker for a year, or treat them for a COVID infection? I've heard treating COVID patients can cost up to $40K in resources.
- lucaspm98 6y agoIt might not be a good idea to put a dollar value on lives, but considering <1%-5% of cases require hospitalization the cost of subsidizing lower income workers is incredibly higher even at $40,000 a patient.
- programmarchy 6y agoWasn't trying to do that, but I see how my statement comes across that way. With something like UBI calibrated between $1-2K/mo, a worker could make the risk calculation themselves. Right now, low income workers don't have much of a choice, so are being forced to risk their health. UBI gives them an out.
- umanwizard 6y agoIt might cost “up to” 40k, sure, but certainly not commonly. The vast majority of people with covid don’t need to go to the hospital at all.
- mikeyouse 6y agoAnd some do, and require over $1.1M in services. Hence risk pooling insurance. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inspiring-story-of-seattle-mans-coronavirus-survival-comes-with-a-1-1-million-dollar-hospital-bill/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inspiring-story-of...
- irrational 6y agoMy 18 year old son has been trying to get a job for 2 years, without success. All of the jobs that used to go to high schoolers are now going to adults who are working low end jobs to help make ends meet. And then the quarantine hit making it even harder to find work.
- collegeburner 6y agoI'm 18 and am working two jobs this summer, though I have had one for over a year. While I'm in development, I've got several friends who are working as lifeguards at a pool. It stinks that your son can't find one, but there are jobs.
- irrational 6y agoAre your pools still open? All of ours closed down at the beginning of quarantine and they have already announced that none of the pools or rec centers will open this summer ( and possibly this year).
- collegeburner 6y agoOpen-ish. They've got physical distancing enforced, and some have limited hours, but yes. Water isn't known to transmit the wuhan coronavirus (and these pools are chlorinated), so I figure it's decently safe as long as people aren't dumb when out of the water. No lounging around on pool chairs, though.
- collegeburner 6y agoFollow-up: why the down-votes in response? I'm very confused given that my prior comment wasn't.
- Doxin 6y agoI imagine it's due to calling it "wuhan coronavirus" instead of simply "coronavirus" or "covid-19".
- hirundo 6y agoSome fraction of this change is attributable to the $2 trillion CARES Act that pays workers $600 per week, contingent on them not working. I assume that the change would still be horrific if this effect is deducted, but that it isn't insignificant.
- biesnecker 6y agoCitation needed? I mean, sure, probably "some fraction" but that "some" is carrying a lot of water here.
- julianapostate 6y agohow would one, in good faith, cite a self-survey of people committing unemployment insurance fraud. people get laid off and are making ok money are likely not going to try as hard to find a new job.
- slg 6y ago>the $2 trillion CARES Act that pays workers $600 per week, contingent on them not having a job available to them. FTFY. Your original language implied the choice to work was up to the individual person. You can't stay on unemployment insurance if you were given the option to return to work and declined. Many people believe that part of the reason many governments were so quick to reopen in the US was because opening businesses allowed people to be kicked off unemployment insurance if they refused to return to work due to health concerns.
- collegeburner 6y agoOf course there are jobs. They may not pay as much as they used to, and they may not even be in one's chosen field, but both of my companies are hiring full-time workers with benefits and all.
- slg 6y agoWhat is the point of having any unemployment insurance system if no consideration is made for what job a person had previously or is qualified to do versus what is currently available? Someone is always hiring. Should no one receive any benefits as long as there is an open job somewhere that they could potentially fill?
- Priem19 6y agoYet the stock market is having a field day, I don't get it.
- vmception 6y agocompanies don't have to pay as many employees anymore so that means more money possible to be returned to shareholders what's not to get about that let me break it down: money from a business operation goes into account. some money goes to costs such as employees. the rest doesn't go anywhere but is owned proportionally by shareholders. now the employees are fewer and most never needed to be there to begin with, but people - the clients - keep putting money into the account. the proportional amount for shareholders keeps growing, so other people are willing to pay an existing shareholder more for the existing share.
- collegeburner 6y agoHa ha, money printer go brrr. That's basically it. Enough artificial stimulus and enough buying of junk debt and investors know there are profits to be made in the short term. The fact that it's handing the federal government more power and ruining the economy in the long term doesn't matter for today's stock price. Don't fight the fed, don't fight the tape.
- kazagistar 6y agoThe line has always been only loosely correlated with economic quality as experienced by the masses, and now it has finally become completely untethered. Also, see reverse factoring, the new financial tool that let's companies pretend to have much better financials then they do and is probably the next big bubble that will entirely collapse when people start digging into it.
- blackrock 6y agoThe Fed is printing money. Err.. I mean, according to them, they are expanding the pool of money available, by buying out the junk bonds issued by corporate America. The same bonds from the cheap loans that they took out at super low interest rates, in order to buy back their shares, thus increasing their stock value, and enabling them to give millions of dollars in bonuses to their executives. While everyone else, gets an unpaid furloughed vacation and unemployment.
- Markoff 6y agohow does it compare to other countries? I really hate articles which claim some numbers without comparing with other countries and trend there