14 ms·

The Rise of the Non-Working Class

89 points by xrayarx 4y ago

missedthecue 4y ago
"We’ve got seven million prime-age men, 25 to 54 years old, who are out of the job market altogether, neither working nor looking for work." This is insane. I had no idea it was that many.
- fullshark 4y ago
  From discussion it sounds like ~700k are students, and some other large number are on disability but he doesn't provide that number.
  - jnwatson 4y ago
    Also 1.3 million men are incarcerated, most of which fall into that age range.
  - abeppu 4y ago
    He also doesn't really go into the realities of disability benefits, but I think it's worth pointing out that the criteria of a disability preventing you from working can be dependent both on the kinds of work available to you in your community, and the judgement of medical professionals. My understanding is that many people on disability could plausibly do _some_ work, but if a past injury or illness makes it difficult to be on their feet throughout the day, and the jobs available to them in their communities are in some way physical (even just standing at a register), they end up out of the workforce. I wonder if it would be better for everyone if there was a middle tier for people whose disability makes them unable to get a job in the market with their current abilities, but doesn't preclude them from doing something useful (e.g. volunteering in their community) or from studying to be able to do other work, and require them to do one or the other to continue receiving benefits. Perhaps this, coupled with greater support for employers making accessibility affordances for workers could get more of these people reengaged with society.
  - drbeast 4y ago
    The "disabled" metric is a joke. A lot of NEETs aren't really disabled and are gaming the system with fake diagnoses and are outright lying. There's a whole class of these guys who have basically retired on the state dime and use MGTOW tropes like blaming women, the work force, home ownership, etc to justify their laziness. I used to be sympathetic but when you meet these guys, they're basically a "big rock candy mountain" hobos and have a myriad of personal problems they refuse to fix since the state freebies make it possible to live this way.
- scifibestfi 4y ago
  Me neither! How are they paying rent?
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    I make $200k and spend 30 a year. Obviously an outlier but not planning on working much longer.
  - rngname22 4y ago
    I spent half my 20s (in various spurts) living off savings trying to do solo lifestyle business entrepreneurship but mostly just building for a non-existent audience and none of those stretches would have been registered as any form of 'employment', as I didn't bother to register any sort of business or have any income to report. If you have a good job and live very frugally in a cheap COL area with roommates, cooking your own food, and no one else to provide for, it's achievable to only work half the time and live off savings the other half. Wonder if there's a generation of men who have stints of trying to make an app, or learn coding, or make it big as a YouTuber or soundcloud rapper, etc. who don't show up in employment statistics.
    - moris_borris 4y ago
      This, this, this. When I first heard the statistics bandied about in interviews with this author, my first thought was the quality of the statistics (I won't refer to the numbers using the modern-day honorific "data"). Perhaps this is discussed at length in his book? I have not yet read it.
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    Loans, spouses, parents, disability, FB marketplace/craigslist, selling drugs, other side hustles that aren't reported
    - roflyear 4y ago
      I know three of these people (not disabled) and they all live off their spouses.
- thebigman433 4y ago
  If you read some statistics about the group, it pretty much makes sense. There is a decent chunk of the population that is disabled, and then a bunch identify as caregivers for someone else. Being in school makes up another large chunk. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/whos-not-working-in-the-us-learn-the-basics https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/whos-not-working...
  - bluedino 4y ago
    Speaking of disability, there are something like 30% more people on long-term disability since the pandemic, on top of the skyrocketing amount since the 80's
- dangus 4y ago
  Tossing numbers around like this always looks "insane" until you realize that there are hundreds of millions of people in the United States. Kind of like when you say "Chicago has the most murders!" without pointing out that it's solidly safer per-capita than a number of mid-size cities that don't have the same reputation.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    The murder rate in nearby Detroit is double that of Chicago. None of the cities with a higher murder rate than Chicago have a great reputation.
    - dangus 4y ago
      Disagree. Indianapolis, Atlanta, San Bernardino, Dayton (OH) don't have the same negative stigma.
      - bluedino 4y ago
        They don't have the headlines of '60 people shot this weekend' because they have far less shootings. But they definitely have the high crime reputation. https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/georgia/report-puts-atlanta-among-the-50-worst-cities-to-live-in-the-country/93-564459928 https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/georgia/report-put... While Atlanta has experienced substantial economic and population growth in recent years, the city's high violent crime rate continues to hinder the area's quality of life. There were 1,084 violent crimes reported in 2016 per 100,000 Atlanta residents, nearly three times the national violent crime rate of 386 incidents per 100,000 Americans.
        dangus 4y ago
        These headlines are something that leads to people surveyed consistently misstating and exaggerating Chicago as being #1 in crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/upshot/murder-crime-trends-chicago.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/upshot/murder-crime-trend... More than half of people in the survey think Chicago is #1, when it's not! There's a big difference between people understanding that Atlanta or DC have generally high crime, versus crime being a nationally-recognized brand and identity like it is for Chicago.
xrayarx 4y ago
Interview with Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt. He holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI From the book: Today, in 2022, American men suffer Depression-era employment rates, even though they inhabit the wealthiest and most productive society ever known. After the pandemic, we have gone from men without work, to work without men
Arainach 4y ago
Is anyone really surprised? All of American society was based on the mythos that if you worked hard, you can succeed. We can debate to what degree this was ever true, but it's been obvious for decades that it's not true and that it's getting worse. With housing becoming an investment increasingly dominated by cynical corporations with no empathy, only greed, even hard workers have to spend every cent they have with no source of significant savings (other than the death of a relative, not available to most) and not even the illusion that they will ever afford a home or be able to raise a family in a middle class lifecycle. Massive corporations have been built off American workers and American infrastructure - the regulations and taxes that provide us roads, utilities, clean water, safe food, safety, and more. Since at least the 1980s these corporations have abandoned the belief that they need to give back to or invest in these communities and have gone to great measure to slash worker pay, fight regulations, and tear down the educational systems and social safety nets that enabled America's growth in the twentieth century. Even safety is far from guaranteed - minorities have known forever that the police are not there to protect them, but it's increasingly apparent to everyone that they're an organized crime protection racket, refusing to discipline or remove abusive cops, refusing to do their jobs and throwing hissy fits at the slightest suggestion that they be subject to any accountability. In cities across the country, the mere suggestion that officers not be allowed to physically abuse people leads to a refusal to go on patrol and no consequences. Meanwhile, at the very top billionaires accumulate more and more wealth and face no consequences for their actions. Whether it's manipulating financial markets (and being fined far less than you profited) or blatantly stealing and mishandling classified documents and not even being charged, the fact that there are different concepts of "justice" for different classes has rarely if ever been more evident. Hard work isn't rewarded and is often punished with higher expectations (whether that's an increased quota or a 'manager' title) with no increase in pay. Long gone are the days of joining a company as a janitor with the dream of working your way up; upper and even middle management is an incestuous club who would rather hire someone externally than train someone internal. Why should people want to work for starvation wages that don't allow them to build savings to make others rich?
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  > Why should people want to work for starvation wages that don't allow them to build savings to make others rich? Historically, because the alternative is worse -- literally starving. For most of modern capitalism, most men had such jobs, because they had no choice. I haven't listened to/read the piece, does he go into how these people survive? Are they doing black/grey-market semi-legal or illegal stuff (which I'd actually consider "working", even if they don't get counted in the visible labor force), or getting government benefits, or living off savings, or being taken care of by family, or what?
adammunich 4y ago
as a late zoomer: this is obvious to everyone young and seemingly impossible for old people to see
- helloharvey 4y ago
- doublepg23 4y ago
  Agreed as a zoomer who spent a year not working and with one friend currently not working for a year+.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on why do you think it should be much (?) more apparent to young?
intellectronica 4y ago
Not suggesting that this necessarily invalidates the opinions in this one article, but this IWF site is extremely politicised, and some of the other content is really awful. And it's misleading, I suspect intentionally. For example by offering strong counter-feminist opinions under the title feminism, campaigning against gun control, etc etc etc. Free speech, yes, but be aware where you get your information from.
- zzzeek 4y ago
  agree, and I just flag content like this that comes from untrustworthy sources. I would guess a site called "Independent Womens Forum" that goes on to have a story about a "mens crisis" written by a man would propose.....women are the problem? The author (person being interviewed) can't quite hold himself back: "That is not true for women. That has not been as true for women. We’ve got this fantastic existence proof in our society that people can drop out of the labor force for years and years and go back and be productive, because they’re called mothers." Wow bitter much? let's blame working moms.
  - sleepymoose 4y ago
    Except that he later goes on to describe how this is also affecting women more and that we should be paying attention to that as well? I don't think anything the author said is actually disparaging of women, in fact there was quite a bit of the opposite, talking about how vital their role in society has been. He's not blaming working moms, he's using them as the perfect example that a person can leave the workforce for years at a time and rejoin without much loss. Where is he blaming mothers for this situation in the statement you quoted?
    - zzzeek 4y ago
      implication that there is supposedly some bias towards giving jobs to moms re-entering the workforce and not to men. which is absurd. the US does not even have any system of state-supported childcare set up. The lives of working moms could not be more difficult.
snapcaster 4y ago
Wow this is much worse than I thought it was. People like most on this forum that are built for knowledge work sure are lucky
fullshark 4y ago
Good discussion on UBI, I used to be a big proponent of it, but after the pandemic I agree that it's not a cure all, and definitely will cause a lot of people to fall further down a vice trap, encouraging others to join them. With that said, UBI is very much a fringe policy prescription, and Andrew Yang was pretty much kicked out of the Democratic party. He offers no prescriptions as far as I can tell other than an organic great awakening arriving, in other words a collective delusion convincing everyone to work and work hard. Something has to give with housing I think. The ramifications of policy there would impact trillions of dollars in wealth and any debates would be sluggish and full of inertia.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  EITC makes so much more sense than UBI. If I’ve learned anything it’s that incentives matter and UBI creates all the wrong ones.
- brightball 4y ago
  The fun thing about this economic situation is that it would normally work itself out. Money runs out or runs low for government benefits, the benefits paid go down and people go back to work. The problem self resolves due to the money supply. Now, instead the same thing happens but we print more money, causing inflation. Cost of goods goes up. People need more money to survive and the cost of labor goes up…which further drives up the cost of goods. But the way our government benefits work, if you go back to work you lose them in many cases. The inflation cycle is dangerous and it only happens because once you vote in dependency programs you can never vote them out. It’s made worse because of the benefit cliffs that make people want to stay below certain income lines to avoid losing the benefits that come with it. It’s a situation born entirely from far too much government intervention.
- hinkley 4y ago
  I just started rewatching The Expanse and I had forgotten about the amount of casual nationalism (racism but by planet) is in the first season. This is making me feel things post-pandemic that I didn’t feel so strongly before. The Belters see Earthers as the head of the snake. The Martians jeer at them for being listless, directionless planet destroyers on the dole. The thing is that there may be a solution for UBI that also reduces the planet destroyer aspect, and that’s to claw back mineral rights and charge companies for their extraction. From land, from water, or just to burn the air. This treats the Physical wealth of the US as something owned by her citizens, who are entitled to recompense for the consequences of exploitation. It’s not without its flaws, because getting paid more tends to make people want to say yes, but right now there isn’t even a question you own the rights you can do whatever you want and skip to the bank feeling safe about externalization of the risks. The government is your personal janitor.
whatever1 4y ago
Sounds like southern Europe. Over-educated under-employed youth that work for pennies as servers, baristas and food delivery. All the government budget goes to fund broken pension systems. All the private money stays within the oligarchs circle. 0 investments + huge overheads + aging population = death spiral
warbler73 4y ago
> the Non-Working Class The Aristocracy. Them that are better than us common people. They who are comfortably idle.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  you obviously did not read any of the article, if that's your conclusion.
kubb 4y ago
The only thing I can say is: I envy these people. I would love to spend my life free from the endless cycle of meaningless work that is the every day reality of a software developer. When I have more than a couple days off, I can find happiness and meaning from walking around and looking at a tree. I will have to work for 20 years before I can pay off a house. I don't get that many vacations. I usually spend the weekend recovering. Work sucks out the energy that I would otherwise be able to use for anything that brings me joy. You have one life, if you don't wan't to live it as a forced laborer, why should you? Why would you?
- HideousKojima 4y ago
  >You have one life, if you don't wan't to live it as a forced laborer, why should you? Why would you? Because until recently in history, the choices for most humans was work or starve. And nowadays the choice is work or take advantage of the generosity of others. And note that said "generosity" is usually collected under threat of violence via taxation. So if you feel morally ok taking advantage of those who actually do work, you do you. Just don't be surprised when those who do work resent and despise you.
  - kubb 4y ago
    When I hear this sentiment I'm always completely baffled, because it sounds like the person expressing it lives in some other world than I do. No country that I know of allows you to collect unemployment benefits forever. You get maybe 1-2 years to find a new job, and after that they leave you on your own. This usually means homelessness. As a homeless person, you might get some food, but many starve and freeze. By no means is that a secure existence.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      You're not aware that most of Europe exists? What?
      - kubb 4y ago
superkuh 4y ago
Not having children is probably the primary factor in opting out of wage slavery (wages that don't or barely cover living expenses). Various political blocks are absolutely desperate for law changes that would force people to have unwanted children that would lock them back in.
- boppo1 4y ago
  > Various political blocks are absolutely desperate for law changes that would force people to have unwanted children Who?
- lostmsu 4y ago
  As a person paying taxes, I'd rather them spent on making raising children to be "free", than supporting a multimillion cohort of jobless men who are otherwise fully capable.
la64710 4y ago
Sorry but I could not find in the article what is the problem that others are facing due to this so called non working class folks? AFAICT they are just watching videos and playing video games and not hurting anyone (except themselves maybe). If the author is concerned about some decline in something’s due to this there should be clear evidence for that claim.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  When you have MILLIONS of people choose to not participate or contribute to society in any way, AND depend on others for their survival, we all loose - full stop.
  - la64710 4y ago
    Yeah? With growing automation it is inevitable that human beings will have more free time to spend any way they please to. Some would travel to other planets but that does not mean that it should be imposed on everyone. As far as personal growth is concerned it may take a form of mandatory community service for everyone for one or two years. As human beings we do not have to stick to our herd mentality. In fact as humans we dare to imagine things differently. BTW it is “lose” not “loose”.
helloharvey 4y ago
jamal-kumar 4y ago
It's not just men who are ending up in the NEET vortex. The pandemic really seems to have taken the best years away from some of the generation coming of age around now who seems to have spent the past few years holed up at home on discord. I recently met a 20 year old girl who was calling people who don't watch anime "normies" with literally no aspirations other than being a camgirl. I am friends with another age 24 who is in an extremely similar position, literally just sounds like she smokes weed plays video games and watches anime with most of her time. I think it's important to realize that this demographic is probably way wider than the typical idea of who ends up in this position. These are (outside of their agoraphobic habits) very attractive young women.
- boppo1 4y ago
  Without a corporate income it's too expensive to move closer to a city to be with other young people unless you want to get caught up in the service industry spiral.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    I think the other crazy thing is that people are pulling internet hustles that offer questionable value to local societies for stacks more money on less effort than those in either the service industry spiral or the corporate income bracket. It's really wild how easy stuff like dropshipping, social media marketing, playing video games on twitch, and all these other things are compared to hard work in any field. It's going to be interesting if any of that hits a collapse wall in the future.
    - nradov 4y ago
      It kind of already has collapsed. How many Americans actually earn enough to survive as Twitch streamers? Maybe a few thousand at most? Relative to the population size they are completely irrelevant.
      - jamal-kumar 4y ago
jrexilius 4y ago
The trend seems to correlate with drug use in society. Not sure which is the chicken or the egg, but from personal observation of people I grew up with, I'd say its worth examining drugs as potential causation.
dangus 4y ago
Just a heads up, this source is a conservative think tank according to Wikipedia and just...looking at their articles. Upon visiting the site, a popup window was sent my way that was trying to toss a transphobic article at me. If you search for "transgender" on their site it's full of anti-transgender and TERF articles with titles like "‘Women’s Bill of Rights’ Introduced to Counter Transgender Ideology." Now onto the article itself... Again, it's really obviously a conservative-slanted article, even including a random dig at Nancy Pelosi for...ya know, the standard reasons. The article is making the argument that this new fangled society is disincentivizing work. Ya know, the same "nobody wants to work anymore" line that we've heard from capitalists for decades and decades. [1] The article is basically slapping us in the face with the Protestant work ethic, very unscientifically connecting the lack of a need to work with drug use and "despair." Apparently, this negative side effect of degenerate drug use only applies to men. Undoubtedly these authors have no problem with the close to 30% of mothers who are stay at home parents, but I guess the 7% of fathers who are stay at home parents are at home taking drugs and looking at screens when they should be out digging for coal and hauling logs. I do wonder how this concept of despair applies to the non-working members of the ownership class! Let me guess, they worked their way up with their bootstraps and earned their wealth? Doesn't this entire idea fall apart when you think for five seconds about retirees? Under this philosophy, how do they have a happy life if they aren't working? Is everyone 65+ just sad all the time and doing drugs to cope with their despair? Weird because every piece of demographic information I can find talks about how retirees are the happiest age group. You want men to work the "dirty" jobs they used to work back when "America was Great"? Pay them! If these jobs are all left open, clearly the companies that have these job openings don't need to fill the roles all that badly, because otherwise they'd raise the pay rate. You'd think an economist like the one engaged in the conversation would understand supply and demand! [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...
colpabar 4y ago
https://archive.ph/YqO5V https://archive.ph/YqO5V
revskill 4y ago
One reason (at least to me): All is about lie. I don't care much anything the social media or government (together with their law) did, because i know, they're not capable of doing the right and fair things to the people. They just know how to make the most profit as possible from the system as they have the right to do so. So, that's the end of the world, some day.
thwayunion 4y ago
I expected an article about the actually idle capital class, who really do live entire lives without working (or only working glamorous jobs that are more about contributing to their social status than doing actually necessary work). Instead it was "the uppity and lazy lower class is now refusing work for poverty wages; we need to saddle men with children and debt or we won't have cheap labor off of which we can profit".
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  How do you explain that women and foreign-born men in otherwise very similar demographics are participating in the work force by many factors though? I found that very interesting.
  - nescioquid 4y ago
    I think there are a couple things that mediate these phenomena: 1) a multi-year gap in the CV is generally looked at less suspiciously when the reason is child-rearing or some other positive commitment; you'll have to have an explanation for that gap that doesn't reduce confidence in you as a candidate. 2) There is a selection bias, I presume, with the immigrant comparison. Not saying these things invalidate the claim, but should be considered before accepting the claim at face value. BTW, the claim in the article was fairly weak: since women do return to work after child-rearing, then it is possible that an applicant can get hired after a multi-year gap in the CV.
  - thwayunion 4y ago
    Why would I need to explain that? Why should I even give a shit as long as fourth generation land lords are living off of rent checks? Need more labor? Start by at least disappropraiting the trust funders and petite landlorders of any revenue stream that comes on the back of the working class. We can talk about the rest later.
- CrypticShift 4y ago
  > we won't have cheap labor off of which we can profit This should have been the subtitle of this article.
shadowgovt 4y ago
""" Well, the UBI siren, as you indicated, and I completely agree with you about this, it’s a false solution. It’s a false solution for a democratic society. It’s a false solution for economic malady. It’d be a very convenient way of funding a vehicle so that the little people would be quiet, go back to their television screens and Percocets; but we’ve seen what happens with people who are disconnected from the workforce of working age now and not involved in the raising of kids and stuff, and it’s not pretty. """ In general, I haven't seen much attempt when all adults in the household are out-of-work to raise a family, because how would they afford it? I don't think we know what things look like if we restructure the economy to say "You have enough money to raise one or more children on even if you do not have a job."
UncleOxidant 4y ago
The part where they talk about how men leaving the workforce started in the 60s and is a linear trend till now (I wish they'd show some graphs). It got me to thinking in a different direction: The percentage of women in the workforce has risen during that time and (I suspect) mirrors the change they're seeing in male workforce participation decline. Is it possible that some of this is due to men opting to stay at home with the kids while the wife is working a professional job? Looking at it from that angle it doesn't seem quite as terrible. Culturally, we tend to think that men should be at work, but with more women in the workforce that opened up alternatives for men to be at home with the kids instead. Not saying that that's what all of this is, but we need to try to separate out those who are opting to stay home to take care of the kids - that's not a bad thing, they're actually doing something important (and the cost of childcare can be quite high in many areas).
- chasd00 4y ago
  I know this is sexist but in many types of jobs you find today men simply can't compete with women. The multi-tasking and keeping all the balls in the air at the same time type work is something I see women excelling at and out competing their male coworkers for promotions/bonus time and time again.
strangattractor 4y ago
IMHO: The modern work environment (or possibly any work environment) is simply not appealing to certain types of people. If those people can find other ways to survive without having to do things they really dislike why do them? Emigrants are a poor comparison because they are self selecting - many of them came to the US specifically for the purpose of working. The 9-5 with 2 weeks vacation work thing is a relatively new invention for humans. We have spent far more time evolving under more fluid time management situations like seasonal work or doing different work during the course of the year. The current pattern is specialized and somewhat mind numbingly repetitive.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  You are missing some big components though: this has grown for decades with very little deflection in the trend, and "survive without doing things they really dislike" seems odd motivation to do absolutely nothing.
  - strangattractor 4y ago
    Maybe the ways these people have found to survive has grown for decades. People are simply taking advantage of the opportunity. I am not implying this is the only reason but it maybe one reason. It also depends on how these people are counted. Does a person that lives a sailing cruiser life style count as being employed. Many people in that category make money on Youtube, move rich peoples boats in the off season and do boat repair work and cleaning etc. They simply do not have a traditional job.
  - strangattractor 4y ago
    We do not know they do absolutely nothing. They do not do traditional work that shows up in the gov't statistics.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  > IMHO: The modern work environment (or possibly any work environment) is simply not appealing to certain types of people. > The 9-5 with 2 weeks vacation work thing is a relatively new invention for humans. I don't think it could be that though, because conditions have generally gotten better, and there was less resistance to work at time where working conditions were worse. Say 1950's or so. I mean the environment where we work from home and have very flexible hours, retirement, healthcare, generous vacation policies, etc. is pretty new an spectacular in relation to past work environments. These sorts of things used to be the privilege of some business owners who weren't critical to daily business.
durnygbur 4y ago
Talking about EU - working on employment contract and seeing over 40% cut off every month... on services mostly not available for relatively healthy man... it effectively uproots the motivation to hop in back once one got off this train at some point for some reason. No children and spouse? Even better...
xedrac 4y ago
I believe productivity and work are essential to human happiness. However, I also think we need to dial it back a bit. What's the point of all this work work work, if you never have the chance to balance it with creative pursuits and other enjoyable activities? Likewise, without work, my other activities are not as enjoyable. Balance is key for me, but our culture seems to favor more work and more stress. Hopefully that can change to something more tenable for more people.
sys32768 4y ago
This subreddit has 2.3 million users https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/
throwaway23597 4y ago
It's funny to me how the simple category of having a job is weighted so highly in some people's minds. I live a life pretty similar to the NEETs described, in all honesty. I live in a suburb in my 20s, I spend most of my time on screens, single, living alone, very occasionally get together with friends. But because I have a software job, I guess I am part of the "successful" class? No, it's not about working or not working in my opinion. It's about a society that has GINI-d it's way out of social mobility, a society that easily lets people close themselves off in extremely comfortable bubbles of cheap entertainment, a society that is so stratified, so alienating, that people would rather just close themselves off from it. Western society has basically just reverted to feudalism, IMO. Assets are simply too expensive, so circumstances of birth become the most important factor in your quality of life. Working hard doesn't matter because even with the most prestigious jobs in society, you have no way to catch up. The losers who weren't born into a favorable position, such as myself, just occupy themselves with digital bread and circuses. What else is there to do? I'm basically just a bitch of the Outer Party and I've accepted it.
- ericmcer 4y ago
  Wealth inequality was been worse in the US at other times and I would challenge the notion that our current wealthy elite is the most powerful and influential version in history. If anything workers have never had as many rights and opportunities as they do now. Maybe we are more aware of it than previous generations were, maybe humans are just animals and we function better with idealistic blinders of nationalism.
- waboremo 4y ago
  Such great points you've brought up, and hopefully it's not lost on many posters on HN, that technicality of on paper being "successful" but realistically not living very differently from NEETs. It says a lot about western society when many would likely see company towns as a hugely beneficial move these days. An example is bloomberg calling Amazon's potential factory towns as champions for the working class. What a backwards world.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  NEETs? GINI-d? The "Outer Party"? Do you hear yourself? I don't know what those things mean, and I think it's pretty weird that you assume the average reader will. And we're pretty far from "feudalism." What "assets" are you talking about that you need to get a decent job? The only one I can think of that is truly locked away behind high prices is education, but even there lots of people succeed by working hard and taking on debt for school.
tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago
The dangers of an increasing idle populace are more than just Jan 6th and mass-shootings. Such a situation is unhealthy on so many levels.
jdkee 4y ago
Why is this flagged?
- intellectronica 4y ago
  It’s alt-Right propaganda
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    Well the article has a lot of insight. Perhaps this should make me reconsider the alt-right then.
perfecthjrjth 4y ago
I used to work in retail, worked as a security guard, and many such odd jobs. Majority of my ex-colleagues (including myself) then would rather stay home, if they can get free housing and food.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  well yeah
jxm262 4y ago
I'm confused why this would be flagged? At the time of my post here, there's 71 comments in < 2 hours. It's obviously a discussion point for folks here. What did part of the submission guidelines does this article go against? Curious for future submissions myself
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Probably because so many people find this controversial. From what I see in the comments, there is a strong dislike of the source's conservative values and relations to conservative political groups. Wouldn't be surprised to see it labeled as "disinformation" or something like that. Quite frankly I'm shocked that there is so much resistance to the ideas in this video. Kinda proves the point I guess.
  - jxm262 4y ago
    Tbh I didn't even know the source was a deeply conservative website. That said, the article is just a discussion with an author. Not seeing how this falls under misinformation here, but maybe I'm misguided ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - nonethewiser 4y ago
      > Not seeing how this falls under misinformation here It doesn't. But there are people who are reporting it because they dont like the source > agree, and I just flag content like this that comes from untrustworthy sources.
CrypticShift 4y ago
Here is my two cents on this whole non-work thing. We are in a 21st century western civilisation where food (= no hunger) and entertainment (= no boredom) are cheap and abundant. If you somehow manage to find an abode (the hard part), why would you "have" to be working for money? Why is the assumed "issue" here even labelled as an issue to start with? 1- At the personal level: What do really every human yearn for? We need to stop generalizing our value-system. Even if you are poor, without a college education or a job. you can still be growing inwardly (= better person) and contributing around you in many non-monetary ways (= better [virtual]community). 2- At the society level: what do the world really need/want among all this busy-ness and activity (= growing GDP)? aren't we, to a great extent, just carried away with the momentum and weight of the modern world, unable (and unwilling) to collectively change the course of this high-speed, problem-riddled train ? The rise of the Non-Working-for-Money (and not work per se) Class is not an issue. It is just a symptom. We need (and will have) more of them.
djaouen 4y ago
In a previous period, these people would have simply become homeless and starved to death. This is not a “rise”: this is survival. Progress, at least.

89 points by xrayarx 4y ago

"We’ve got seven million prime-age men, 25 to 54 years old, who are out of the job market altogether, neither working nor looking for work." This is insane. I had no idea it was that many.

fullshark 4y ago
From discussion it sounds like ~700k are students, and some other large number are on disability but he doesn't provide that number.
- jnwatson 4y ago
  Also 1.3 million men are incarcerated, most of which fall into that age range.
- abeppu 4y ago
  He also doesn't really go into the realities of disability benefits, but I think it's worth pointing out that the criteria of a disability preventing you from working can be dependent both on the kinds of work available to you in your community, and the judgement of medical professionals. My understanding is that many people on disability could plausibly do _some_ work, but if a past injury or illness makes it difficult to be on their feet throughout the day, and the jobs available to them in their communities are in some way physical (even just standing at a register), they end up out of the workforce. I wonder if it would be better for everyone if there was a middle tier for people whose disability makes them unable to get a job in the market with their current abilities, but doesn't preclude them from doing something useful (e.g. volunteering in their community) or from studying to be able to do other work, and require them to do one or the other to continue receiving benefits. Perhaps this, coupled with greater support for employers making accessibility affordances for workers could get more of these people reengaged with society.
- drbeast 4y ago
  The "disabled" metric is a joke. A lot of NEETs aren't really disabled and are gaming the system with fake diagnoses and are outright lying. There's a whole class of these guys who have basically retired on the state dime and use MGTOW tropes like blaming women, the work force, home ownership, etc to justify their laziness. I used to be sympathetic but when you meet these guys, they're basically a "big rock candy mountain" hobos and have a myriad of personal problems they refuse to fix since the state freebies make it possible to live this way.
scifibestfi 4y ago
Me neither! How are they paying rent?
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  I make $200k and spend 30 a year. Obviously an outlier but not planning on working much longer.
- rngname22 4y ago
  I spent half my 20s (in various spurts) living off savings trying to do solo lifestyle business entrepreneurship but mostly just building for a non-existent audience and none of those stretches would have been registered as any form of 'employment', as I didn't bother to register any sort of business or have any income to report. If you have a good job and live very frugally in a cheap COL area with roommates, cooking your own food, and no one else to provide for, it's achievable to only work half the time and live off savings the other half. Wonder if there's a generation of men who have stints of trying to make an app, or learn coding, or make it big as a YouTuber or soundcloud rapper, etc. who don't show up in employment statistics.
  - moris_borris 4y ago
    This, this, this. When I first heard the statistics bandied about in interviews with this author, my first thought was the quality of the statistics (I won't refer to the numbers using the modern-day honorific "data"). Perhaps this is discussed at length in his book? I have not yet read it.
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  Loans, spouses, parents, disability, FB marketplace/craigslist, selling drugs, other side hustles that aren't reported
  - roflyear 4y ago
    I know three of these people (not disabled) and they all live off their spouses.
thebigman433 4y ago
If you read some statistics about the group, it pretty much makes sense. There is a decent chunk of the population that is disabled, and then a bunch identify as caregivers for someone else. Being in school makes up another large chunk. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/whos-not-working-in-the-us-learn-the-basics https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2022/whos-not-working...
- bluedino 4y ago
  Speaking of disability, there are something like 30% more people on long-term disability since the pandemic, on top of the skyrocketing amount since the 80's
dangus 4y ago
Tossing numbers around like this always looks "insane" until you realize that there are hundreds of millions of people in the United States. Kind of like when you say "Chicago has the most murders!" without pointing out that it's solidly safer per-capita than a number of mid-size cities that don't have the same reputation.
- bluedino 4y ago
  The murder rate in nearby Detroit is double that of Chicago. None of the cities with a higher murder rate than Chicago have a great reputation.
  - dangus 4y ago
    Disagree. Indianapolis, Atlanta, San Bernardino, Dayton (OH) don't have the same negative stigma.
    - bluedino 4y ago
      They don't have the headlines of '60 people shot this weekend' because they have far less shootings. But they definitely have the high crime reputation. https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/georgia/report-puts-atlanta-among-the-50-worst-cities-to-live-in-the-country/93-564459928 https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/georgia/report-put... While Atlanta has experienced substantial economic and population growth in recent years, the city's high violent crime rate continues to hinder the area's quality of life. There were 1,084 violent crimes reported in 2016 per 100,000 Atlanta residents, nearly three times the national violent crime rate of 386 incidents per 100,000 Americans.
      - dangus 4y ago
        These headlines are something that leads to people surveyed consistently misstating and exaggerating Chicago as being #1 in crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/upshot/murder-crime-trends-chicago.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/upshot/murder-crime-trend... More than half of people in the survey think Chicago is #1, when it's not! There's a big difference between people understanding that Atlanta or DC have generally high crime, versus crime being a nationally-recognized brand and identity like it is for Chicago.

xrayarx 4y ago

Interview with Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt. He holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI From the book: Today, in 2022, American men suffer Depression-era employment rates, even though they inhabit the wealthiest and most productive society ever known. After the pandemic, we have gone from men without work, to work without men

Arainach 4y ago

Is anyone really surprised? All of American society was based on the mythos that if you worked hard, you can succeed. We can debate to what degree this was ever true, but it's been obvious for decades that it's not true and that it's getting worse. With housing becoming an investment increasingly dominated by cynical corporations with no empathy, only greed, even hard workers have to spend every cent they have with no source of significant savings (other than the death of a relative, not available to most) and not even the illusion that they will ever afford a home or be able to raise a family in a middle class lifecycle. Massive corporations have been built off American workers and American infrastructure - the regulations and taxes that provide us roads, utilities, clean water, safe food, safety, and more. Since at least the 1980s these corporations have abandoned the belief that they need to give back to or invest in these communities and have gone to great measure to slash worker pay, fight regulations, and tear down the educational systems and social safety nets that enabled America's growth in the twentieth century. Even safety is far from guaranteed - minorities have known forever that the police are not there to protect them, but it's increasingly apparent to everyone that they're an organized crime protection racket, refusing to discipline or remove abusive cops, refusing to do their jobs and throwing hissy fits at the slightest suggestion that they be subject to any accountability. In cities across the country, the mere suggestion that officers not be allowed to physically abuse people leads to a refusal to go on patrol and no consequences. Meanwhile, at the very top billionaires accumulate more and more wealth and face no consequences for their actions. Whether it's manipulating financial markets (and being fined far less than you profited) or blatantly stealing and mishandling classified documents and not even being charged, the fact that there are different concepts of "justice" for different classes has rarely if ever been more evident. Hard work isn't rewarded and is often punished with higher expectations (whether that's an increased quota or a 'manager' title) with no increase in pay. Long gone are the days of joining a company as a janitor with the dream of working your way up; upper and even middle management is an incestuous club who would rather hire someone externally than train someone internal. Why should people want to work for starvation wages that don't allow them to build savings to make others rich?

jrochkind1 4y ago
> Why should people want to work for starvation wages that don't allow them to build savings to make others rich? Historically, because the alternative is worse -- literally starving. For most of modern capitalism, most men had such jobs, because they had no choice. I haven't listened to/read the piece, does he go into how these people survive? Are they doing black/grey-market semi-legal or illegal stuff (which I'd actually consider "working", even if they don't get counted in the visible labor force), or getting government benefits, or living off savings, or being taken care of by family, or what?

adammunich 4y ago

as a late zoomer: this is obvious to everyone young and seemingly impossible for old people to see

helloharvey 4y ago
doublepg23 4y ago
Agreed as a zoomer who spent a year not working and with one friend currently not working for a year+.
lostmsu 4y ago
Can you elaborate on why do you think it should be much (?) more apparent to young?

intellectronica 4y ago

Not suggesting that this necessarily invalidates the opinions in this one article, but this IWF site is extremely politicised, and some of the other content is really awful. And it's misleading, I suspect intentionally. For example by offering strong counter-feminist opinions under the title feminism, campaigning against gun control, etc etc etc. Free speech, yes, but be aware where you get your information from.

zzzeek 4y ago
agree, and I just flag content like this that comes from untrustworthy sources. I would guess a site called "Independent Womens Forum" that goes on to have a story about a "mens crisis" written by a man would propose.....women are the problem? The author (person being interviewed) can't quite hold himself back: "That is not true for women. That has not been as true for women. We’ve got this fantastic existence proof in our society that people can drop out of the labor force for years and years and go back and be productive, because they’re called mothers." Wow bitter much? let's blame working moms.
- sleepymoose 4y ago
  Except that he later goes on to describe how this is also affecting women more and that we should be paying attention to that as well? I don't think anything the author said is actually disparaging of women, in fact there was quite a bit of the opposite, talking about how vital their role in society has been. He's not blaming working moms, he's using them as the perfect example that a person can leave the workforce for years at a time and rejoin without much loss. Where is he blaming mothers for this situation in the statement you quoted?
  - zzzeek 4y ago
    implication that there is supposedly some bias towards giving jobs to moms re-entering the workforce and not to men. which is absurd. the US does not even have any system of state-supported childcare set up. The lives of working moms could not be more difficult.

snapcaster 4y ago

Wow this is much worse than I thought it was. People like most on this forum that are built for knowledge work sure are lucky

fullshark 4y ago

Good discussion on UBI, I used to be a big proponent of it, but after the pandemic I agree that it's not a cure all, and definitely will cause a lot of people to fall further down a vice trap, encouraging others to join them. With that said, UBI is very much a fringe policy prescription, and Andrew Yang was pretty much kicked out of the Democratic party. He offers no prescriptions as far as I can tell other than an organic great awakening arriving, in other words a collective delusion convincing everyone to work and work hard. Something has to give with housing I think. The ramifications of policy there would impact trillions of dollars in wealth and any debates would be sluggish and full of inertia.

HDThoreaun 4y ago
EITC makes so much more sense than UBI. If I’ve learned anything it’s that incentives matter and UBI creates all the wrong ones.
brightball 4y ago
The fun thing about this economic situation is that it would normally work itself out. Money runs out or runs low for government benefits, the benefits paid go down and people go back to work. The problem self resolves due to the money supply. Now, instead the same thing happens but we print more money, causing inflation. Cost of goods goes up. People need more money to survive and the cost of labor goes up…which further drives up the cost of goods. But the way our government benefits work, if you go back to work you lose them in many cases. The inflation cycle is dangerous and it only happens because once you vote in dependency programs you can never vote them out. It’s made worse because of the benefit cliffs that make people want to stay below certain income lines to avoid losing the benefits that come with it. It’s a situation born entirely from far too much government intervention.
hinkley 4y ago
I just started rewatching The Expanse and I had forgotten about the amount of casual nationalism (racism but by planet) is in the first season. This is making me feel things post-pandemic that I didn’t feel so strongly before. The Belters see Earthers as the head of the snake. The Martians jeer at them for being listless, directionless planet destroyers on the dole. The thing is that there may be a solution for UBI that also reduces the planet destroyer aspect, and that’s to claw back mineral rights and charge companies for their extraction. From land, from water, or just to burn the air. This treats the Physical wealth of the US as something owned by her citizens, who are entitled to recompense for the consequences of exploitation. It’s not without its flaws, because getting paid more tends to make people want to say yes, but right now there isn’t even a question you own the rights you can do whatever you want and skip to the bank feeling safe about externalization of the risks. The government is your personal janitor.

whatever1 4y ago

Sounds like southern Europe. Over-educated under-employed youth that work for pennies as servers, baristas and food delivery. All the government budget goes to fund broken pension systems. All the private money stays within the oligarchs circle. 0 investments + huge overheads + aging population = death spiral

warbler73 4y ago

> the Non-Working Class The Aristocracy. Them that are better than us common people. They who are comfortably idle.

skeeter2020 4y ago
you obviously did not read any of the article, if that's your conclusion.

kubb 4y ago

The only thing I can say is: I envy these people. I would love to spend my life free from the endless cycle of meaningless work that is the every day reality of a software developer. When I have more than a couple days off, I can find happiness and meaning from walking around and looking at a tree. I will have to work for 20 years before I can pay off a house. I don't get that many vacations. I usually spend the weekend recovering. Work sucks out the energy that I would otherwise be able to use for anything that brings me joy. You have one life, if you don't wan't to live it as a forced laborer, why should you? Why would you?

HideousKojima 4y ago
>You have one life, if you don't wan't to live it as a forced laborer, why should you? Why would you? Because until recently in history, the choices for most humans was work or starve. And nowadays the choice is work or take advantage of the generosity of others. And note that said "generosity" is usually collected under threat of violence via taxation. So if you feel morally ok taking advantage of those who actually do work, you do you. Just don't be surprised when those who do work resent and despise you.
- kubb 4y ago
  When I hear this sentiment I'm always completely baffled, because it sounds like the person expressing it lives in some other world than I do. No country that I know of allows you to collect unemployment benefits forever. You get maybe 1-2 years to find a new job, and after that they leave you on your own. This usually means homelessness. As a homeless person, you might get some food, but many starve and freeze. By no means is that a secure existence.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    You're not aware that most of Europe exists? What?
    - kubb 4y ago

superkuh 4y ago

Not having children is probably the primary factor in opting out of wage slavery (wages that don't or barely cover living expenses). Various political blocks are absolutely desperate for law changes that would force people to have unwanted children that would lock them back in.

boppo1 4y ago
> Various political blocks are absolutely desperate for law changes that would force people to have unwanted children Who?
lostmsu 4y ago
As a person paying taxes, I'd rather them spent on making raising children to be "free", than supporting a multimillion cohort of jobless men who are otherwise fully capable.

la64710 4y ago

Sorry but I could not find in the article what is the problem that others are facing due to this so called non working class folks? AFAICT they are just watching videos and playing video games and not hurting anyone (except themselves maybe). If the author is concerned about some decline in something’s due to this there should be clear evidence for that claim.

skeeter2020 4y ago
When you have MILLIONS of people choose to not participate or contribute to society in any way, AND depend on others for their survival, we all loose - full stop.
- la64710 4y ago
  Yeah? With growing automation it is inevitable that human beings will have more free time to spend any way they please to. Some would travel to other planets but that does not mean that it should be imposed on everyone. As far as personal growth is concerned it may take a form of mandatory community service for everyone for one or two years. As human beings we do not have to stick to our herd mentality. In fact as humans we dare to imagine things differently. BTW it is “lose” not “loose”.

helloharvey 4y ago

jamal-kumar 4y ago

It's not just men who are ending up in the NEET vortex. The pandemic really seems to have taken the best years away from some of the generation coming of age around now who seems to have spent the past few years holed up at home on discord. I recently met a 20 year old girl who was calling people who don't watch anime "normies" with literally no aspirations other than being a camgirl. I am friends with another age 24 who is in an extremely similar position, literally just sounds like she smokes weed plays video games and watches anime with most of her time. I think it's important to realize that this demographic is probably way wider than the typical idea of who ends up in this position. These are (outside of their agoraphobic habits) very attractive young women.

boppo1 4y ago
Without a corporate income it's too expensive to move closer to a city to be with other young people unless you want to get caught up in the service industry spiral.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  I think the other crazy thing is that people are pulling internet hustles that offer questionable value to local societies for stacks more money on less effort than those in either the service industry spiral or the corporate income bracket. It's really wild how easy stuff like dropshipping, social media marketing, playing video games on twitch, and all these other things are compared to hard work in any field. It's going to be interesting if any of that hits a collapse wall in the future.
  - nradov 4y ago
    It kind of already has collapsed. How many Americans actually earn enough to survive as Twitch streamers? Maybe a few thousand at most? Relative to the population size they are completely irrelevant.
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago

jrexilius 4y ago

The trend seems to correlate with drug use in society. Not sure which is the chicken or the egg, but from personal observation of people I grew up with, I'd say its worth examining drugs as potential causation.

dangus 4y ago

Just a heads up, this source is a conservative think tank according to Wikipedia and just...looking at their articles. Upon visiting the site, a popup window was sent my way that was trying to toss a transphobic article at me. If you search for "transgender" on their site it's full of anti-transgender and TERF articles with titles like "‘Women’s Bill of Rights’ Introduced to Counter Transgender Ideology." Now onto the article itself... Again, it's really obviously a conservative-slanted article, even including a random dig at Nancy Pelosi for...ya know, the standard reasons. The article is making the argument that this new fangled society is disincentivizing work. Ya know, the same "nobody wants to work anymore" line that we've heard from capitalists for decades and decades. [1] The article is basically slapping us in the face with the Protestant work ethic, very unscientifically connecting the lack of a need to work with drug use and "despair." Apparently, this negative side effect of degenerate drug use only applies to men. Undoubtedly these authors have no problem with the close to 30% of mothers who are stay at home parents, but I guess the 7% of fathers who are stay at home parents are at home taking drugs and looking at screens when they should be out digging for coal and hauling logs. I do wonder how this concept of despair applies to the non-working members of the ownership class! Let me guess, they worked their way up with their bootstraps and earned their wealth? Doesn't this entire idea fall apart when you think for five seconds about retirees? Under this philosophy, how do they have a happy life if they aren't working? Is everyone 65+ just sad all the time and doing drugs to cope with their despair? Weird because every piece of demographic information I can find talks about how retirees are the happiest age group. You want men to work the "dirty" jobs they used to work back when "America was Great"? Pay them! If these jobs are all left open, clearly the companies that have these job openings don't need to fill the roles all that badly, because otherwise they'd raise the pay rate. You'd think an economist like the one engaged in the conversation would understand supply and demand! [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymo...

colpabar 4y ago

https://archive.ph/YqO5V https://archive.ph/YqO5V

revskill 4y ago

One reason (at least to me): All is about lie. I don't care much anything the social media or government (together with their law) did, because i know, they're not capable of doing the right and fair things to the people. They just know how to make the most profit as possible from the system as they have the right to do so. So, that's the end of the world, some day.

thwayunion 4y ago

I expected an article about the actually idle capital class, who really do live entire lives without working (or only working glamorous jobs that are more about contributing to their social status than doing actually necessary work). Instead it was "the uppity and lazy lower class is now refusing work for poverty wages; we need to saddle men with children and debt or we won't have cheap labor off of which we can profit".

skeeter2020 4y ago
How do you explain that women and foreign-born men in otherwise very similar demographics are participating in the work force by many factors though? I found that very interesting.
- nescioquid 4y ago
  I think there are a couple things that mediate these phenomena: 1) a multi-year gap in the CV is generally looked at less suspiciously when the reason is child-rearing or some other positive commitment; you'll have to have an explanation for that gap that doesn't reduce confidence in you as a candidate. 2) There is a selection bias, I presume, with the immigrant comparison. Not saying these things invalidate the claim, but should be considered before accepting the claim at face value. BTW, the claim in the article was fairly weak: since women do return to work after child-rearing, then it is possible that an applicant can get hired after a multi-year gap in the CV.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  Why would I need to explain that? Why should I even give a shit as long as fourth generation land lords are living off of rent checks? Need more labor? Start by at least disappropraiting the trust funders and petite landlorders of any revenue stream that comes on the back of the working class. We can talk about the rest later.
CrypticShift 4y ago
> we won't have cheap labor off of which we can profit This should have been the subtitle of this article.

shadowgovt 4y ago

""" Well, the UBI siren, as you indicated, and I completely agree with you about this, it’s a false solution. It’s a false solution for a democratic society. It’s a false solution for economic malady. It’d be a very convenient way of funding a vehicle so that the little people would be quiet, go back to their television screens and Percocets; but we’ve seen what happens with people who are disconnected from the workforce of working age now and not involved in the raising of kids and stuff, and it’s not pretty. """ In general, I haven't seen much attempt when all adults in the household are out-of-work to raise a family, because how would they afford it? I don't think we know what things look like if we restructure the economy to say "You have enough money to raise one or more children on even if you do not have a job."

UncleOxidant 4y ago

The part where they talk about how men leaving the workforce started in the 60s and is a linear trend till now (I wish they'd show some graphs). It got me to thinking in a different direction: The percentage of women in the workforce has risen during that time and (I suspect) mirrors the change they're seeing in male workforce participation decline. Is it possible that some of this is due to men opting to stay at home with the kids while the wife is working a professional job? Looking at it from that angle it doesn't seem quite as terrible. Culturally, we tend to think that men should be at work, but with more women in the workforce that opened up alternatives for men to be at home with the kids instead. Not saying that that's what all of this is, but we need to try to separate out those who are opting to stay home to take care of the kids - that's not a bad thing, they're actually doing something important (and the cost of childcare can be quite high in many areas).

chasd00 4y ago
I know this is sexist but in many types of jobs you find today men simply can't compete with women. The multi-tasking and keeping all the balls in the air at the same time type work is something I see women excelling at and out competing their male coworkers for promotions/bonus time and time again.

strangattractor 4y ago

IMHO: The modern work environment (or possibly any work environment) is simply not appealing to certain types of people. If those people can find other ways to survive without having to do things they really dislike why do them? Emigrants are a poor comparison because they are self selecting - many of them came to the US specifically for the purpose of working. The 9-5 with 2 weeks vacation work thing is a relatively new invention for humans. We have spent far more time evolving under more fluid time management situations like seasonal work or doing different work during the course of the year. The current pattern is specialized and somewhat mind numbingly repetitive.

skeeter2020 4y ago
You are missing some big components though: this has grown for decades with very little deflection in the trend, and "survive without doing things they really dislike" seems odd motivation to do absolutely nothing.
- strangattractor 4y ago
  Maybe the ways these people have found to survive has grown for decades. People are simply taking advantage of the opportunity. I am not implying this is the only reason but it maybe one reason. It also depends on how these people are counted. Does a person that lives a sailing cruiser life style count as being employed. Many people in that category make money on Youtube, move rich peoples boats in the off season and do boat repair work and cleaning etc. They simply do not have a traditional job.
- strangattractor 4y ago
  We do not know they do absolutely nothing. They do not do traditional work that shows up in the gov't statistics.
nonethewiser 4y ago
> IMHO: The modern work environment (or possibly any work environment) is simply not appealing to certain types of people. > The 9-5 with 2 weeks vacation work thing is a relatively new invention for humans. I don't think it could be that though, because conditions have generally gotten better, and there was less resistance to work at time where working conditions were worse. Say 1950's or so. I mean the environment where we work from home and have very flexible hours, retirement, healthcare, generous vacation policies, etc. is pretty new an spectacular in relation to past work environments. These sorts of things used to be the privilege of some business owners who weren't critical to daily business.

durnygbur 4y ago

Talking about EU - working on employment contract and seeing over 40% cut off every month... on services mostly not available for relatively healthy man... it effectively uproots the motivation to hop in back once one got off this train at some point for some reason. No children and spouse? Even better...

xedrac 4y ago

I believe productivity and work are essential to human happiness. However, I also think we need to dial it back a bit. What's the point of all this work work work, if you never have the chance to balance it with creative pursuits and other enjoyable activities? Likewise, without work, my other activities are not as enjoyable. Balance is key for me, but our culture seems to favor more work and more stress. Hopefully that can change to something more tenable for more people.

sys32768 4y ago

This subreddit has 2.3 million users https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/ https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/

throwaway23597 4y ago

It's funny to me how the simple category of having a job is weighted so highly in some people's minds. I live a life pretty similar to the NEETs described, in all honesty. I live in a suburb in my 20s, I spend most of my time on screens, single, living alone, very occasionally get together with friends. But because I have a software job, I guess I am part of the "successful" class? No, it's not about working or not working in my opinion. It's about a society that has GINI-d it's way out of social mobility, a society that easily lets people close themselves off in extremely comfortable bubbles of cheap entertainment, a society that is so stratified, so alienating, that people would rather just close themselves off from it. Western society has basically just reverted to feudalism, IMO. Assets are simply too expensive, so circumstances of birth become the most important factor in your quality of life. Working hard doesn't matter because even with the most prestigious jobs in society, you have no way to catch up. The losers who weren't born into a favorable position, such as myself, just occupy themselves with digital bread and circuses. What else is there to do? I'm basically just a bitch of the Outer Party and I've accepted it.

ericmcer 4y ago
Wealth inequality was been worse in the US at other times and I would challenge the notion that our current wealthy elite is the most powerful and influential version in history. If anything workers have never had as many rights and opportunities as they do now. Maybe we are more aware of it than previous generations were, maybe humans are just animals and we function better with idealistic blinders of nationalism.
waboremo 4y ago
Such great points you've brought up, and hopefully it's not lost on many posters on HN, that technicality of on paper being "successful" but realistically not living very differently from NEETs. It says a lot about western society when many would likely see company towns as a hugely beneficial move these days. An example is bloomberg calling Amazon's potential factory towns as champions for the working class. What a backwards world.
D13Fd 4y ago
NEETs? GINI-d? The "Outer Party"? Do you hear yourself? I don't know what those things mean, and I think it's pretty weird that you assume the average reader will. And we're pretty far from "feudalism." What "assets" are you talking about that you need to get a decent job? The only one I can think of that is truly locked away behind high prices is education, but even there lots of people succeed by working hard and taking on debt for school.

tinglymintyfrsh 4y ago

The dangers of an increasing idle populace are more than just Jan 6th and mass-shootings. Such a situation is unhealthy on so many levels.

jdkee 4y ago

Why is this flagged?

intellectronica 4y ago
It’s alt-Right propaganda
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Well the article has a lot of insight. Perhaps this should make me reconsider the alt-right then.

perfecthjrjth 4y ago

I used to work in retail, worked as a security guard, and many such odd jobs. Majority of my ex-colleagues (including myself) then would rather stay home, if they can get free housing and food.

nonethewiser 4y ago
well yeah

jxm262 4y ago

I'm confused why this would be flagged? At the time of my post here, there's 71 comments in < 2 hours. It's obviously a discussion point for folks here. What did part of the submission guidelines does this article go against? Curious for future submissions myself

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nonethewiser 4y ago
Probably because so many people find this controversial. From what I see in the comments, there is a strong dislike of the source's conservative values and relations to conservative political groups. Wouldn't be surprised to see it labeled as "disinformation" or something like that. Quite frankly I'm shocked that there is so much resistance to the ideas in this video. Kinda proves the point I guess.
- jxm262 4y ago
  Tbh I didn't even know the source was a deeply conservative website. That said, the article is just a discussion with an author. Not seeing how this falls under misinformation here, but maybe I'm misguided ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    > Not seeing how this falls under misinformation here It doesn't. But there are people who are reporting it because they dont like the source > agree, and I just flag content like this that comes from untrustworthy sources.

CrypticShift 4y ago

Here is my two cents on this whole non-work thing. We are in a 21st century western civilisation where food (= no hunger) and entertainment (= no boredom) are cheap and abundant. If you somehow manage to find an abode (the hard part), why would you "have" to be working for money? Why is the assumed "issue" here even labelled as an issue to start with? 1- At the personal level: What do really every human yearn for? We need to stop generalizing our value-system. Even if you are poor, without a college education or a job. you can still be growing inwardly (= better person) and contributing around you in many non-monetary ways (= better [virtual]community). 2- At the society level: what do the world really need/want among all this busy-ness and activity (= growing GDP)? aren't we, to a great extent, just carried away with the momentum and weight of the modern world, unable (and unwilling) to collectively change the course of this high-speed, problem-riddled train ? The rise of the Non-Working-for-Money (and not work per se) Class is not an issue. It is just a symptom. We need (and will have) more of them.

djaouen 4y ago

In a previous period, these people would have simply become homeless and starved to death. This is not a “rise”: this is survival. Progress, at least.