6 ms·

"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

"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.

"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.