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The Long-Term Unemployed Are Doomed

47 points by sheri 13y ago

bassclef 13y ago
the majority haven't been looking for work.. I was long term unemployeed.. I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job.. it paid shit, but at least i was no longer on the tit of america. The problem with long term unemployment is the same issue I ran into the other day on an elevator.. One girl asks another girl, "did you get a job yet?" the girl responds, "Giiiirrrrrl, da gubament gonna give me 2 hundred dollas a week, why i gonna get a jerb?" Get em off the tit and get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all.
- jiggy2011 13y ago
  Great idea, now all we have to do is make jobs for them!
- bloat 13y ago
  Nice self righteous racial stereotyping there - thanks.
  - talmand 13y ago
    It's not stereotyping if it's a quote, but then again, we don't know the accuracy of the quote.
    - 001sky 13y ago
      Ok, but "quotes" can be used to further sterotypes, tho. in addition to accuracy there is always context...I'm sure the nazi's quoted a couple of jews in their day.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - talmand 13y ago
        Well, sure it could. But to me, if a quote from a person somehow reinforces a stereotype of a group the quoted person is labeled as part of, then that implies more about the person hearing the quote than the person stating the quote. A person can use a quote out of context all day long but it doesn't truly reinforce the stereotype until a person hearing the quote agrees with the out-of-context usage. For example, if a person from Mars says something stupid and someone provides me with a quote. Do I say to myself; "That person is stupid" or "Martians are stupid"? If I go with the second then the problem is within me, not the quote nor the person who provided it. So, did the Nazi's quote Jews out of context to further their aims of denigrating them? I'm sure they did. But it only worked for people who agreed with the idea in the first place.
    - clebio 13y ago
      Quotes of any person's speech aren't normally written in quasi-phonetic slant-accent jibberish.
      - talmand 13y ago
        It should be if it were spoken that way, otherwise it's not accurate. Of course, that could depend on the context of the quote. If you are just communicating the information given then, sure, correct for grammar and whatnot. If it's to communicate the personality and/or attitude of the person, then you quote verbatim as it was said. That's why the term "sic" exists for quoting people, you are acknowledging that it is known the quoted statement appears incorrect. Because that's the way it was stated.
        clebio 13y ago
        That's a good point about using 'sic', but then the OP didn't.
  - sfg 13y ago
    Has the comment been edited? It does not, as it currently appears on my screen, mention any particular race for the people in the dialogue given.
    - velis_vel 13y ago
      This kind of 'well if it doesn't explicitly mention race it can't possibly be stereotypical' belief is nonsense. If I go 'oh me so solly!' everybody is going to know I'm stereotyping Asians (specifically, Chinese/Japanese) people.
  - bassclef 13y ago
    where did I stereotype? Did I make a blanket statement about any race? I'm not sure I did.. Seems you don't even know the definition.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- keiferski 13y ago
  Man, if only all the minorities and women would learn how to code, they'd be fine, just like me. /s
- zenogais 13y ago
  Satire? We can only hope
- Strilanc 13y ago
  Another solution, that doesn't starve the unfortunate, is basic income. It solves the negative marginal return on the effort of finding a job not by giving nothing, but by unconditionally giving even after you get the job. This shifts the system away from incentivizing you to be unemployed, and towards countering the centralization of wealth.
  - talmand 13y ago
    Actually, providing basic income will eventually mean a large number of people simply choosing to not work at all. That may be a good thing or bad thing, I don't know for certain and I believe it's one of those things that might be good for one area but bad for another. My natural inclination is that such a system will create a huge incentive for a percentage of people to willingly choose to be unemployed for most of their lives. If the amount isn't enough as a "living wage" amount then people will either adjust to make it work for them or they will clamor for the powers that be to increase the amount given to make it "livable". I'm sure it would soon become a "right" of some sort. I'm not saying that such a system would inherently be a bad thing, but it has to be designed with that outcome being considered and the consequences it implies. If by countering the centralization of wealth you mean take from Paul to give to Peter, then you're just trading one problem for another.
    - freehunter 13y ago
      If people willingly choose to be unemployed for $15,000/yr (as an example income), that's fine. There's no reason we need to be at 100% employment. Some amount of the population just doesn't need to work. The problem is, basic income will likely lead to inflation. The government would need to control prices in the necessities market (food, rent, utilities, etc) to make basic survival possible on $15,000. The price of luxuries can go up as long as necessities are affordable. There's your incentive. You can survive on the basic income, but if you want any luxuries, you have to have a job. That way the people who don't want to contribute to society are taken care of, and there's an incentive to actually get a job paying more than $15,000. I'm sure we've all heard stories about families on welfare buying expensive toys, TVs, Xbox, dirtbikes, cable TV, etc. If we want to get rid of that, welfare needs to pay exactly what it costs to survive, and nothing more.
- 001sky 13y ago
  I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job Not sure what century this was in, but the article is basically saying this strategy is a fail. The resume's get screened to "auto" inbox->Trash, without being read, considered, interviewed, etc. Now, if you got those leads because of your network...you're clearly using a strategy that is not widely available to many people (that's why its a network: it's exclusive, not open). So, in essence you are blaming them for not being priviledged. Again, this is a moot point. These people need to pick a strategy that is <open to them>. Saying you have options that they lack is not a viable piece of advice to them (duh!). You might as well tell them to go to Harvard or MIT and become a programmer. While it's true tha "would" help, its also true that it has zero probability of <actually> helping. In otherwords, it's a humble-brag. It's not advice or critique (or a good comp).
- smtddr 13y ago
  >>get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all. Speak for yourself. Other people starving & dying isn't a win in my book.
- tdees40 13y ago
  The jive talk really adds to your story.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  In all seriousness, I think you're in the wrong forum here. There are many political web fora where "starve and die" rhetoric is an accepted standard, and I think you'll find the level of discourse there to be more to your taste.
  - bassclef 13y ago
    Sorry I don't agree with paying for someone else to be lazy..
- AlisdairO 13y ago
  Given the radical increase in the number of long term unemployed, what data is it that makes you believe that the number of people wanting to work has gone down, rather than the availability of jobs?
- djur 13y ago
  You might want to look up "peasant's revolt" to see what happens to rich people when the poor see their only option is to starve and die. Throw in "Marie Antoinette" while you're at it.
tokenadult 13y ago
I live in the part of the country that the article author recommends as a place to go to find work if unemployed. The long-term unemployed persons I know best came out of high school with very limited job skills (barely literate or numerate) and have spent their free time while unemployed mostly pursuing hobbies that do not further develop their job skills. (Some of the saddest cases I know are people who had problems with alcohol or other drug abuse in the early years of their working life.) Many of those people would indeed be employable in St. Cloud, Minnesota or Mankato, Minnesota in entry-level, manual-labor jobs, but unemployment benefits have, till now, provided enough income to allow living independently without having to go to work each day. I'll see what happens to the people I know best, locally, when the "emergency" extensions of unemployment benefits at long last cease. There are definitely employers in this frigidly cold state that are still on the lookout for willing workers, and I wish well to everyone seeking work. There are probably quite a few opportunities yet available to the people who will look for them.
- batbomb 13y ago
  Most of the cities are in North Dakota jobs are assuredly oil field related. As such, in some sense they are an unemployment paradise if you don't have a family, because it's low-skill, subsidized housing (and often food) work, and easily pays 3 times what you would get at mcdonalds.
  - bsirkia 13y ago
    What do you think is keeping people from moving to North Dakota? I actually don't totally know the answer, are the travel expenses just too high?
    - talmand 13y ago
      From what I've read those areas are like boom towns of old, they are having an influx of people moving there for jobs. Often to the detriment to local communities, according to locals. But picking up and moving is not an easy thing, especially with family. Speaking from experience by moving my family to three different states spread across the lower half of the US because of work, moving can be a difficult and expensive thing to do. Most of our current debt is due to moving.
batbomb 13y ago
Historically Oil booms help too. Most the places he mentioned are going through a fracking renaissance. More importantly, it's low skill and high pay, but often cold and demanding work (say Midland isn't cold to the roughneck wrestling with the well in January.)
bluedino 13y ago
People need to move to where the work is. Maybe the government could offer a tax break or stipend to get people to move (and somehow try not to let that get abused), I'd be surprised if the transportation industry isn't lobbying for it already. For generations, people moved. To Oregon/California just because the east was too crowded and didn't have much opportunity. To the midwest to work in the tire, steel, and auto plants. To the south for the new auto and manufacturing plants. And now it will be to the plains for jobs in the construction and energy industries. How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to? How long will they use the excuse "I'm upside down on my mortgage?" when they aren't going to be right-side up anytime soon and aren't working as it is? Pack your shit up and move and send money back home to your family if you don't want to bring them. The long-lasting unemployment benefits just keep 'workers' stuck where they are, and as a result it keeps their families and future generations stuck in the same place.
- gilrain 13y ago
  > How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to? For this post, I will be a hypothetical long-term unemployed person. Moving to even a low-cost area is going to be at least $1000 for deposit on an apartment and utilities, plus the first month of rent. I'll also need groceries and transportation or gas. Keep in mind that my credit, assuming I even have any, is maxed out because I have already been using it to supplement my living expenses and job hunt for the past few years. I can't afford to move, and that is not a fucking excuse.
  - talmand 13y ago
    As a frequent mover, it is interesting that people just say "move!" without considering such things. If you don't have the capital to move, then it's likely not going to happen. Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      > Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job. Depends where you are. The UK has a problem with migrant workers getting stuck - they come here for work, don't get work, can't afford to go home, can't get help to get back home because of legal complications.
bsirkia 13y ago
The idea of relocation assistance has always been something that interested me. I often split time between Vermont and NYC, and don't totally get why there aren't more programs to help people living in a rough, low-income housing projects get to VT (or one of the other areas), where you can easily find jobs and a nice place to rent for $300/month.
- padobson 13y ago
  It sure would be nice if there was a mass transit system that could get people from NY to Vermont in a few hours without requiring a month's wages to do it.
woodchuck64 13y ago
"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering" Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady unemployment insurance check?
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed. But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job. So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.
  - buckbova 13y ago
    "They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque." Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets? I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that they suspect was "below them". For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.
    - Ensorceled 13y ago
      Yes, they will. Because they've given up hope. I would like to think that I'd personally be one of the people who keeps trying. But if I was getting constant rejection, I'm not sure how many YEARS I'd keep trying. Many of the long term unemployed have never recovered from the 2008 down turn, some have been unemployed longer than that. That's 5 years or more.
    - rickhanlonii 13y ago
      >a job that is "below them" This is absolutely not why people are not getting of UI to take a minimum wage job. Right now, if they were to accept a minimum wage job, they would lose UI and get paid less for the job then they are getting from UI. It is financially advantageous to stay on UI in those cases. Without that incentive, they would take the low wage job, but they would have to get on welfare/food stamps which the rest of us have to pay for. So, tax payers are either paying for UI or subsidizing the difference between what those employees are paid and a living wage. The solution to this mess is simple: Make companies who are profiting billions share those profits and pay their employees a living wage. You do this by raising the minimum wage. With a higher minimum wage, it would become a financially sound decision to get off UI and work a minimum wage job, and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the difference.
3pt14159 13y ago
We'd probably save a lot of money in the long term if we helped people with mental illness. Many who are long term unemployed or out of the work force all together, are so because of addictions or depression. Then again, there actually are some legit lazy people that will only ever work enough to buy hydro and a roof over their head.
- tekalon 13y ago
  Or too old, or out of date skills and don't know/have resources to learn new ones.
cantastoria 13y ago
It would be interesting to see what the socioeconomic/educational attainment breakdown of the long-term unemployed looks like (Link anyone?). I think the assumption is that most of people in this group are unskilled high-school drop outs but I wonder how many of them "have some college" or a degree and are just unwilling to "lower themselves" to working on an oil pipeline or any other kind of work associated with being blue collar. The assumption that people will take any job they can get, at least in my experience, is just plain wrong. For instance (I know this is just anecdotal) but I know quite a few people in NYC who attended elite schools that are perfectly happy to collect unemployment while they wait for a high prestige job opening (e.g. "I'm waiting for the New Yorker to have a job opening"). The thought that a government grant would get these people to go work in an oil field in South Dakota is absurd most of them are horrified at the thought of leaving Brooklyn. I was thinking of this article from Mike Rowe: http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/ http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/ "Right now, in the manufacturing sector alone, 600,000 jobs are currently available." If that is indeed the case there is something else going on.
- geogra4 13y ago
  At what wage? That's what I say to those claiming that hundreds of thousands of jobs are unfilled in any sector, be it IT consulting firms clamoring for h1-bs or agriculture firms looking for cheap fruit pickers.
  - cantastoria 13y ago
    Ok but if your problem is that no one will look at your resume because you haven't worked in five years surely one of these jobs will solve that at the very least.
  - nickff 13y ago
    If immigrants can survive on (and desire) the income provided by the jobs which you deem to be 'low wage', why should Americans disdain and forgo the positions? Put another way, you seem to suggest that because people cannot find jobs they want, they should be considered unemployable; Why is this true?
Ensorceled 13y ago
This kind of skirts the problem. There are more unemployed than there are jobs. There are far more under-employed people working at McDonalds that would like better jobs. Those jobs don't exist. They just don't. The jobs are in China or they are being done better by mechanical sorters at Amazon. Even if we figure out a relocation plan, that solves a minor part of the problem. Worse, those low skilled, high risk employees are now in another part of the country, first to be laid off and with no social network once they are. There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.
- aggieben 13y ago
  > There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving. I think that's a pretty narrow view. There are other possible alternatives, like: new businesses opening; completely new industry forming that doesn't require high skill levels from its workers. Given an individual situation, I don't think it would be too difficult to imagine additional scenarios. I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty the long-term unemployed are facing, but I don't think it's constructive to throw up your hands and despair, either.
  - nickff 13y ago
    It is also likely that when these open positions are filled, more will become available.
  - Ensorceled 13y ago
    I can imagine that happening but it's seems silly to base policy on some imaginary scenario where a new industry starts up that that needs literally millions of lower skilled employees to function. When was the last time that happened? Every current industry is shedding employees. New industries are either small or require a high skill set.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Maybe make-work programs aren't a bad idea? American infrastructure is in a really bad way, something like the Civilian Conservation Corps could do a lot of good repairing and improving rail lines, highways, bridges, and the electrical grid.
maerF0x0 13y ago
This article fails to recognize that there are more ways to earn an income than "get a job" . Write a (book|song|game|movie), grow some food, sell a service, invent something, sell some clothes. One year I was laid off and "employed" 3 days later because I became a freelance contractor. For the right price many many skills are marketable. I as a businessman would never turn away someone who had the nerve, need and drive to come to me and say "I'll bust my ass for half my usual price, just dont let me starve".
- talmand 13y ago
  I'll take a shot at addressing your suggestions. Write a book, song, game, movie? For income? Are you serious? Even if you are of the type to pull that off, how will you support yourself as you create these things? It's not the same as a job with a weekly income. Grow some food? Actually, more people should do this. Hopefully the local government won't stop you from doing it because your neighbors whine about you growing tomatoes by the side of your house. Sell a service? Plausible, if you have a skill that fits a niche because otherwise you're probably already entering a highly competitive and low margin industry. Also, depending on the service you sell, the local government may want to have a word or two with you which will likely require capital. Invent something? See the part about writing a book, song, game or movie above. Same thing, if not worse because lawyers. Sell some clothes? True, you could sell just about everything. In some cases that might be ideal because you might be able to downgrade your lifestyle just a tad to lower your expenses. But good for you that you had a skill that translated into a freelance contractor market. That doesn't work for everyone. I've never heard of freelance contractor cashiers for instance. I guess they could learn a skill first but, again, how do you support yourself during this time? It's good for you that you're willing to exploit someone's skills at half their value but not every business looks at it that way. I would imagine most managers would not want to hire someone at lower value or being over-qualified for because often that means the job is often a stepping stone to a better job. They see it as a risk of losing the investment they made in an employee that left at the first opportunity. Not that I'm saying your suggestions are necessarily bad ideas. It's just not always so easy a solution, such as people who suggest just picking up and moving to where the jobs are. With a little thought one can see that things are not always as simple as what they sometimes should be.
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
"...Mailing unemployment insurance checks to people who aren't so much unemployed as unemployable is obviously not an ideal public policy. But simply doing nothing for them is cruel and insane..." Let's look at our choices presented by the author. 1) Each of us gives money from his pocket to pay people to do things nobody else wants them to do, whether sitting on the couch, sweeping the streets, whatever, or 2) Be insane and cruel. Certainly such a discussion must have a bit more nuance than that, right? I'm not going to dive into the argument, because there will be plenty of it, mostly non-productive. I just wanted to point out the premise the article is written around. Such premises do not make for good discussions by people of varying opinions.
- nickff 13y ago
  The author is obviously presenting a false-choice. One option he does not even mention is that there could be an open an honest public debate about what to do, and at least make a new program (not UI), which would specifically and accountably address his issues. Another thing which is not directly addressed is that when UI ends, people get jobs. There is a large amount of literature to support this. In many cases, it is simply not worth it for people to find a job, because UI and other benefits can pay up to 90% of someone's fully employed salary.
worldsayshi 13y ago
I don't get. Just create more jobs! There are plenty of things that need to be done and those unemployed shouldn't be left in the cold so we are going to pay them something anyway. The only "valid" reason there are able and unemployed people is "to scare the shit out of the middle class".
- tekalon 13y ago
  Who will create these jobs, part of the issue is that no one is willing to pay the amount it takes to create the jobs (pay rate, training, taxes, insurance). Unless absolutely necessary, companies don't want to hire extra people just to 'create jobs'.
  - talmand 13y ago
    The usual answer is government. Many people have a negative view towards such things but can be useful if done correctly. Such as infrastructure projects that need to be done anyway. But alas, some people in the system don't agree with such a thought.
    - tekalon 13y ago
      It would be ideal, but the government has no money, and cities are going bankrupt. I would think some sort of tax incentives (or other something) for on job training, make hiring cheaper/easier or moving offshore jobs to local would be the better solutions.
      - talmand 13y ago
        True, usually only the federal government can support such projects because they print their money whenever it is needed. Tax incentives only go so far because the cost of having jobs local go beyond just those taxes. Payroll and its associated taxes can be expensive. Those tax incentives would have to somehow offset those costs as well.
worldsayshi 13y ago
I don't get. Just create more jobs! There are plenty of things that need to be done and those unemployed shouldn't be left in the cold so we are going to pay them something anyway. The only "valid" reason there are able and unemployed people is "to scare the shit out of the middle class".
crazy1van 13y ago
> The country failed these people first by letting the labor market stay so slack for so long that they became unhirable, and now we're going to fail them again. This seems suspect. People lose jobs for specific reasons. Maybe a specific sector is shrinking. Maybe automation is replacing workers of a certain skill set. Maybe cheap labor elsewhere caused your employer to move. Blaming "the country" for failing these people "by letting the labor market stay so slack" is meaningless in its vagueness.
- twoodfin 13y ago
  I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02. A milder recession to be sure (though you wouldn't know it from the political rhetoric at the time), but one that nonetheless hit employment hard. Within three years net employment was back where it had previously been, and the unemployment rate was back down in the 4%'s. There hadn't been massive spending; most of the deficit increase was lowered taxes and lowered revenue.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02. I'm not sure how Yglesias would, but to me the answer is obvious. The 2001 recession (official dates are still, IIRC, March-November 2001, though there was, around 2004, talk that the start date maybe should have been pinned somewhat earlier, I don't think it was ever actually revised), was, as you note, much shorter and, in part because there was a lot more access to credit, which supported a quick rebound of aggregate demand and a return to expansion and better top-line employment numbers (a number of factors, include tax policy changes which shifted the distribution of gains upwards, made it a fairly hollow expansion in which the bottom three quintiles all saw income declines and the next quintile was flat, however, which, help set the stage for a deeper recession with a much slower recovery when the bottom fell out of the housing market, since it was a lot harder for demand to rebound.)
geogra4 13y ago
We're living in a 21st century economy with 20th century ideas on work. The economy doesn't need 40+ hours from everyone to produce what we need. I agree with some others here that a Basic Income at a reasonable level would help out a lot.
kfcm 13y ago
Ames, IA. NCAA Div I university. Columbia, MO. NCAA Div I university. Lincoln, NE. NCAA Div I university. Iowa City, IA. NCAA Div I university. Fargo, ND. NCAA Div I university. Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA. NCAA Div I university. Mankato, MN. NCAA Div II university. St. Cloud,MN. NCAA Div II university. Rochester, MN. The town Mayo built/healthcare. Notice a pattern here? At least a third of the "metro" locations mentioned are homes to NCAA Division I or II universities. Low unemployment? Yep. Low-paying jobs (even for technical positions)? Yep. (A friend of mine from one of the above Div. I "metros" says semi-tongue-in-cheek: so many grads love the area and want to stay, a convenience store job requires a Masters). Rochester is essentially healthcare through Mayo. If you're not a healthcare professional, good luck. IBM used to have a major presence there, but I don't know how much now.
- padobson 13y ago
  What's most interesting about this is that higher education (through student loans) and healthcare (through medicare, medicaid, social security, etc) are two of the biggest industries subsidized by the government.
twoodfin 13y ago
If unemployment continues to drop or even accelerates its downward trend without a corresponding drop in the labor force participation rate, can we at least consider the possibility that some fraction of the "long term unemployed" would always remain unemployed up until the moment when they ceased being paid not to work? Or, if you want to be more generous, ceased facing a massive effective marginal "taxation" rate on their first couple thousand dollars of monthly income. I don't mean this as a moral judgment. I can imagine a host of situations where being paid $20,000 a year or so to evaluate your employment options and otherwise spend a lot of time doing non-wage-earning activities like spending time with your kids would make perfect sense. I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill.
- hfsktr 13y ago
  "I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill." I was on unemployment for a little over a year. I had to apply to 2 jobs a week and every so often (only twice) I had to spend 3 hours (I felt a waste of time but I am sure there were people who did need the help) at employment services to some sort of meeting (called something like 'workforce re-entry evaluation') where they gave advice on how to fill out applications etc. They also had classes there that counted towards the job search requirements (learn to use web, word, excel, etc). You had to bring your job search records for them to look over also. I know there are people who just sit on their ass but I really would have preferred to be earning some money. I felt bad enough but then to have people say 'just get a job' like I wasn't even trying. Half of them didn't believe that the gas station send a rejection letter (at least they had the courtesy). One of the problems was that this area isn't a tech hub. The bigger cities are but just not paying the bills so you can move away and see if a job works isn't a good solution (driving 6 hours for an interview at your own expense is always fun though). I got way less than $20K that year. At least it helped show how little I could live^H^H^H^H survive on.
jasonkester 13y ago
It's comforting to know that this, along with so many other things that most people have to take for granted, doesn't apply to software developers. Our little corner of the world is still so employee-friendly that it's really hard to damage your career in any meaningful way if you're truly, provably good at what you do. Certainly not by taking the odd five years off to start a startup, travel the world, or play pickup basketball. You'll still have your network when you decide to come back. Those guys will be nicely distributed across dozens of tech companies, all of which need developers like they need air.
- vectorpush 13y ago
  It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software. In addition to that, increased competition from a global remote work force as well as increased immigration sponsored by the tech lobby is going to crush western developer affluence. In another 15 years, things may be looking pretty grim for the average developer.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software. Couldn't you have said the same thing 15 years ago? I don't think anything significant has changed since then. Another problem with this thinking is software is never done, it just evolves and changes. It also needs some serious maintenance. Even if the job of software developers will be done by software, someone still needs to maintain and improve that software (unless we get self-writing software, which I don't see any time soon). Another thing that keeps changing is hardware. Switching from computers to phones and tablets and the web created completely new markets for phone and web apps (written in Java/JavaScript) which weren't there a few years ago. Who's to say there aren't going to be new markets a few years from now? (For example, we'll need developers to write Google Glass apps). In addition, even after all this evolution, current frameworks and languages are still horrendous. The most popular languages right now are C++, Java, JavaScript and PHP, all of them horrible to program in (more or less). I think there's still plenty of work to do in this direction.
shams93 13y ago
You also have older workers although well educated a nd skilled, pushed out of the economy via ageism but still far from retirement.
fragsworth 13y ago
Long-term unemployed have always been doomed. However, a high unemployment rate (suppose 15%) means that the average person is out of a job 15% of the time. In most cases, this is not really that devastating. The problem right now is the unemployment benefits last so long that you can stay out of a job to the point that you become irrelevant. Learning new skills takes effort, and usually requires you to take a pay cut as you get an entry-level job in a new field. Everyone can do it, though. Instead, though, we are incentivising long-term laziness by granting money to people who aren't working. I know at least two people who are just living off their unemployment checks and not making any effort to find real work. If the unemployed are getting a check, then people who are employed should get that same check while employed. I think that's the only way to keep the incentive to work. (This goes back to the idea of a minimum guaranteed income)
- prodigal_erik 13y ago
  Apocryphally, most people are only a couple of paychecks ahead of their bills, and would have to default on something when faced with 15% less income.
billyjobob 13y ago
I'm from a country with a welfare state, where if you are unemployed the government pay your rent and give you a small amount of money to buy food until such time as you are employed again. Not understanding how the American system works, I find this article confusing. It sounds like there is a time limit on how long someone can claim unemployment benefit? So what happens after this time runs out, they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death? Even if you don't care about them on a human level, that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people. Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel.
- lisper 13y ago
  > they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death? Yeah, pretty much, though most of them can subsist for a long time on handouts before they actually die. > that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people Yeah, pretty much. This is one of the reasons the U.S. has the highest incarceration rates and health care costs of any industrialized country by a wide margin. > Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel. If only it were fiction.
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    This is insanely inaccurate so I downvoted you. There are many, many kinds of assistance available to people. It's not an either/or situation where you run out of unemployment and then your next option is death by exposure and starvation. Come on.
    - lisper 13y ago
      > There are many, many kinds of assistance available to people Yeah? Like what? > It's not an either/or situation where you run out of unemployment and then your next option is death by exposure and starvation. Come on. It's not like you run out of unemployment and die from exposure the next day. It's a very slow, gradual process. Many people survive for years on the street before they succumb. But unless something changes, or they are taken in by friends or family, the vast majority of the long-term unemployed will end up on the streets (or in prison) and sooner or later they will die there, because the sad fact of the matter is that at the moment there is no place else for them to go.

47 points by sheri 13y ago

the majority haven't been looking for work.. I was long term unemployeed.. I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job.. it paid shit, but at least i was no longer on the tit of america. The problem with long term unemployment is the same issue I ran into the other day on an elevator.. One girl asks another girl, "did you get a job yet?" the girl responds, "Giiiirrrrrl, da gubament gonna give me 2 hundred dollas a week, why i gonna get a jerb?" Get em off the tit and get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all.

jiggy2011 13y ago
Great idea, now all we have to do is make jobs for them!
bloat 13y ago
Nice self righteous racial stereotyping there - thanks.
- talmand 13y ago
  It's not stereotyping if it's a quote, but then again, we don't know the accuracy of the quote.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    Ok, but "quotes" can be used to further sterotypes, tho. in addition to accuracy there is always context...I'm sure the nazi's quoted a couple of jews in their day.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - talmand 13y ago
      Well, sure it could. But to me, if a quote from a person somehow reinforces a stereotype of a group the quoted person is labeled as part of, then that implies more about the person hearing the quote than the person stating the quote. A person can use a quote out of context all day long but it doesn't truly reinforce the stereotype until a person hearing the quote agrees with the out-of-context usage. For example, if a person from Mars says something stupid and someone provides me with a quote. Do I say to myself; "That person is stupid" or "Martians are stupid"? If I go with the second then the problem is within me, not the quote nor the person who provided it. So, did the Nazi's quote Jews out of context to further their aims of denigrating them? I'm sure they did. But it only worked for people who agreed with the idea in the first place.
  - clebio 13y ago
    Quotes of any person's speech aren't normally written in quasi-phonetic slant-accent jibberish.
    - talmand 13y ago
      It should be if it were spoken that way, otherwise it's not accurate. Of course, that could depend on the context of the quote. If you are just communicating the information given then, sure, correct for grammar and whatnot. If it's to communicate the personality and/or attitude of the person, then you quote verbatim as it was said. That's why the term "sic" exists for quoting people, you are acknowledging that it is known the quoted statement appears incorrect. Because that's the way it was stated.
      - clebio 13y ago
        That's a good point about using 'sic', but then the OP didn't.
- sfg 13y ago
  Has the comment been edited? It does not, as it currently appears on my screen, mention any particular race for the people in the dialogue given.
  - velis_vel 13y ago
    This kind of 'well if it doesn't explicitly mention race it can't possibly be stereotypical' belief is nonsense. If I go 'oh me so solly!' everybody is going to know I'm stereotyping Asians (specifically, Chinese/Japanese) people.
- bassclef 13y ago
  where did I stereotype? Did I make a blanket statement about any race? I'm not sure I did.. Seems you don't even know the definition.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
keiferski 13y ago
Man, if only all the minorities and women would learn how to code, they'd be fine, just like me. /s
zenogais 13y ago
Satire? We can only hope
Strilanc 13y ago
Another solution, that doesn't starve the unfortunate, is basic income. It solves the negative marginal return on the effort of finding a job not by giving nothing, but by unconditionally giving even after you get the job. This shifts the system away from incentivizing you to be unemployed, and towards countering the centralization of wealth.
- talmand 13y ago
  Actually, providing basic income will eventually mean a large number of people simply choosing to not work at all. That may be a good thing or bad thing, I don't know for certain and I believe it's one of those things that might be good for one area but bad for another. My natural inclination is that such a system will create a huge incentive for a percentage of people to willingly choose to be unemployed for most of their lives. If the amount isn't enough as a "living wage" amount then people will either adjust to make it work for them or they will clamor for the powers that be to increase the amount given to make it "livable". I'm sure it would soon become a "right" of some sort. I'm not saying that such a system would inherently be a bad thing, but it has to be designed with that outcome being considered and the consequences it implies. If by countering the centralization of wealth you mean take from Paul to give to Peter, then you're just trading one problem for another.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    If people willingly choose to be unemployed for $15,000/yr (as an example income), that's fine. There's no reason we need to be at 100% employment. Some amount of the population just doesn't need to work. The problem is, basic income will likely lead to inflation. The government would need to control prices in the necessities market (food, rent, utilities, etc) to make basic survival possible on $15,000. The price of luxuries can go up as long as necessities are affordable. There's your incentive. You can survive on the basic income, but if you want any luxuries, you have to have a job. That way the people who don't want to contribute to society are taken care of, and there's an incentive to actually get a job paying more than $15,000. I'm sure we've all heard stories about families on welfare buying expensive toys, TVs, Xbox, dirtbikes, cable TV, etc. If we want to get rid of that, welfare needs to pay exactly what it costs to survive, and nothing more.
001sky 13y ago
I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job Not sure what century this was in, but the article is basically saying this strategy is a fail. The resume's get screened to "auto" inbox->Trash, without being read, considered, interviewed, etc. Now, if you got those leads because of your network...you're clearly using a strategy that is not widely available to many people (that's why its a network: it's exclusive, not open). So, in essence you are blaming them for not being priviledged. Again, this is a moot point. These people need to pick a strategy that is <open to them>. Saying you have options that they lack is not a viable piece of advice to them (duh!). You might as well tell them to go to Harvard or MIT and become a programmer. While it's true tha "would" help, its also true that it has zero probability of <actually> helping. In otherwords, it's a humble-brag. It's not advice or critique (or a good comp).
smtddr 13y ago
>>get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all. Speak for yourself. Other people starving & dying isn't a win in my book.
tdees40 13y ago
The jive talk really adds to your story.
nate_meurer 13y ago
In all seriousness, I think you're in the wrong forum here. There are many political web fora where "starve and die" rhetoric is an accepted standard, and I think you'll find the level of discourse there to be more to your taste.
- bassclef 13y ago
  Sorry I don't agree with paying for someone else to be lazy..
AlisdairO 13y ago
Given the radical increase in the number of long term unemployed, what data is it that makes you believe that the number of people wanting to work has gone down, rather than the availability of jobs?
djur 13y ago
You might want to look up "peasant's revolt" to see what happens to rich people when the poor see their only option is to starve and die. Throw in "Marie Antoinette" while you're at it.

tokenadult 13y ago

I live in the part of the country that the article author recommends as a place to go to find work if unemployed. The long-term unemployed persons I know best came out of high school with very limited job skills (barely literate or numerate) and have spent their free time while unemployed mostly pursuing hobbies that do not further develop their job skills. (Some of the saddest cases I know are people who had problems with alcohol or other drug abuse in the early years of their working life.) Many of those people would indeed be employable in St. Cloud, Minnesota or Mankato, Minnesota in entry-level, manual-labor jobs, but unemployment benefits have, till now, provided enough income to allow living independently without having to go to work each day. I'll see what happens to the people I know best, locally, when the "emergency" extensions of unemployment benefits at long last cease. There are definitely employers in this frigidly cold state that are still on the lookout for willing workers, and I wish well to everyone seeking work. There are probably quite a few opportunities yet available to the people who will look for them.

batbomb 13y ago
Most of the cities are in North Dakota jobs are assuredly oil field related. As such, in some sense they are an unemployment paradise if you don't have a family, because it's low-skill, subsidized housing (and often food) work, and easily pays 3 times what you would get at mcdonalds.
- bsirkia 13y ago
  What do you think is keeping people from moving to North Dakota? I actually don't totally know the answer, are the travel expenses just too high?
  - talmand 13y ago
    From what I've read those areas are like boom towns of old, they are having an influx of people moving there for jobs. Often to the detriment to local communities, according to locals. But picking up and moving is not an easy thing, especially with family. Speaking from experience by moving my family to three different states spread across the lower half of the US because of work, moving can be a difficult and expensive thing to do. Most of our current debt is due to moving.

batbomb 13y ago

Historically Oil booms help too. Most the places he mentioned are going through a fracking renaissance. More importantly, it's low skill and high pay, but often cold and demanding work (say Midland isn't cold to the roughneck wrestling with the well in January.)

bluedino 13y ago

People need to move to where the work is. Maybe the government could offer a tax break or stipend to get people to move (and somehow try not to let that get abused), I'd be surprised if the transportation industry isn't lobbying for it already. For generations, people moved. To Oregon/California just because the east was too crowded and didn't have much opportunity. To the midwest to work in the tire, steel, and auto plants. To the south for the new auto and manufacturing plants. And now it will be to the plains for jobs in the construction and energy industries. How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to? How long will they use the excuse "I'm upside down on my mortgage?" when they aren't going to be right-side up anytime soon and aren't working as it is? Pack your shit up and move and send money back home to your family if you don't want to bring them. The long-lasting unemployment benefits just keep 'workers' stuck where they are, and as a result it keeps their families and future generations stuck in the same place.

gilrain 13y ago
> How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to? For this post, I will be a hypothetical long-term unemployed person. Moving to even a low-cost area is going to be at least $1000 for deposit on an apartment and utilities, plus the first month of rent. I'll also need groceries and transportation or gas. Keep in mind that my credit, assuming I even have any, is maxed out because I have already been using it to supplement my living expenses and job hunt for the past few years. I can't afford to move, and that is not a fucking excuse.
- talmand 13y ago
  As a frequent mover, it is interesting that people just say "move!" without considering such things. If you don't have the capital to move, then it's likely not going to happen. Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job. Depends where you are. The UK has a problem with migrant workers getting stuck - they come here for work, don't get work, can't afford to go home, can't get help to get back home because of legal complications.

bsirkia 13y ago

The idea of relocation assistance has always been something that interested me. I often split time between Vermont and NYC, and don't totally get why there aren't more programs to help people living in a rough, low-income housing projects get to VT (or one of the other areas), where you can easily find jobs and a nice place to rent for $300/month.

padobson 13y ago
It sure would be nice if there was a mass transit system that could get people from NY to Vermont in a few hours without requiring a month's wages to do it.

woodchuck64 13y ago

"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering" Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady unemployment insurance check?

Ensorceled 13y ago
Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed. But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job. So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.
- buckbova 13y ago
  "They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque." Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets? I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that they suspect was "below them". For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.
  - Ensorceled 13y ago
    Yes, they will. Because they've given up hope. I would like to think that I'd personally be one of the people who keeps trying. But if I was getting constant rejection, I'm not sure how many YEARS I'd keep trying. Many of the long term unemployed have never recovered from the 2008 down turn, some have been unemployed longer than that. That's 5 years or more.
  - rickhanlonii 13y ago
    >a job that is "below them" This is absolutely not why people are not getting of UI to take a minimum wage job. Right now, if they were to accept a minimum wage job, they would lose UI and get paid less for the job then they are getting from UI. It is financially advantageous to stay on UI in those cases. Without that incentive, they would take the low wage job, but they would have to get on welfare/food stamps which the rest of us have to pay for. So, tax payers are either paying for UI or subsidizing the difference between what those employees are paid and a living wage. The solution to this mess is simple: Make companies who are profiting billions share those profits and pay their employees a living wage. You do this by raising the minimum wage. With a higher minimum wage, it would become a financially sound decision to get off UI and work a minimum wage job, and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the difference.

3pt14159 13y ago

We'd probably save a lot of money in the long term if we helped people with mental illness. Many who are long term unemployed or out of the work force all together, are so because of addictions or depression. Then again, there actually are some legit lazy people that will only ever work enough to buy hydro and a roof over their head.

tekalon 13y ago
Or too old, or out of date skills and don't know/have resources to learn new ones.

cantastoria 13y ago

It would be interesting to see what the socioeconomic/educational attainment breakdown of the long-term unemployed looks like (Link anyone?). I think the assumption is that most of people in this group are unskilled high-school drop outs but I wonder how many of them "have some college" or a degree and are just unwilling to "lower themselves" to working on an oil pipeline or any other kind of work associated with being blue collar. The assumption that people will take any job they can get, at least in my experience, is just plain wrong. For instance (I know this is just anecdotal) but I know quite a few people in NYC who attended elite schools that are perfectly happy to collect unemployment while they wait for a high prestige job opening (e.g. "I'm waiting for the New Yorker to have a job opening"). The thought that a government grant would get these people to go work in an oil field in South Dakota is absurd most of them are horrified at the thought of leaving Brooklyn. I was thinking of this article from Mike Rowe: http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/ http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/ "Right now, in the manufacturing sector alone, 600,000 jobs are currently available." If that is indeed the case there is something else going on.

geogra4 13y ago
At what wage? That's what I say to those claiming that hundreds of thousands of jobs are unfilled in any sector, be it IT consulting firms clamoring for h1-bs or agriculture firms looking for cheap fruit pickers.
- cantastoria 13y ago
  Ok but if your problem is that no one will look at your resume because you haven't worked in five years surely one of these jobs will solve that at the very least.
- nickff 13y ago
  If immigrants can survive on (and desire) the income provided by the jobs which you deem to be 'low wage', why should Americans disdain and forgo the positions? Put another way, you seem to suggest that because people cannot find jobs they want, they should be considered unemployable; Why is this true?

Ensorceled 13y ago

This kind of skirts the problem. There are more unemployed than there are jobs. There are far more under-employed people working at McDonalds that would like better jobs. Those jobs don't exist. They just don't. The jobs are in China or they are being done better by mechanical sorters at Amazon. Even if we figure out a relocation plan, that solves a minor part of the problem. Worse, those low skilled, high risk employees are now in another part of the country, first to be laid off and with no social network once they are. There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.

aggieben 13y ago
> There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving. I think that's a pretty narrow view. There are other possible alternatives, like: new businesses opening; completely new industry forming that doesn't require high skill levels from its workers. Given an individual situation, I don't think it would be too difficult to imagine additional scenarios. I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty the long-term unemployed are facing, but I don't think it's constructive to throw up your hands and despair, either.
- nickff 13y ago
  It is also likely that when these open positions are filled, more will become available.
- Ensorceled 13y ago
  I can imagine that happening but it's seems silly to base policy on some imaginary scenario where a new industry starts up that that needs literally millions of lower skilled employees to function. When was the last time that happened? Every current industry is shedding employees. New industries are either small or require a high skill set.
ForHackernews 13y ago
Maybe make-work programs aren't a bad idea? American infrastructure is in a really bad way, something like the Civilian Conservation Corps could do a lot of good repairing and improving rail lines, highways, bridges, and the electrical grid.

maerF0x0 13y ago

This article fails to recognize that there are more ways to earn an income than "get a job" . Write a (book|song|game|movie), grow some food, sell a service, invent something, sell some clothes. One year I was laid off and "employed" 3 days later because I became a freelance contractor. For the right price many many skills are marketable. I as a businessman would never turn away someone who had the nerve, need and drive to come to me and say "I'll bust my ass for half my usual price, just dont let me starve".

talmand 13y ago
I'll take a shot at addressing your suggestions. Write a book, song, game, movie? For income? Are you serious? Even if you are of the type to pull that off, how will you support yourself as you create these things? It's not the same as a job with a weekly income. Grow some food? Actually, more people should do this. Hopefully the local government won't stop you from doing it because your neighbors whine about you growing tomatoes by the side of your house. Sell a service? Plausible, if you have a skill that fits a niche because otherwise you're probably already entering a highly competitive and low margin industry. Also, depending on the service you sell, the local government may want to have a word or two with you which will likely require capital. Invent something? See the part about writing a book, song, game or movie above. Same thing, if not worse because lawyers. Sell some clothes? True, you could sell just about everything. In some cases that might be ideal because you might be able to downgrade your lifestyle just a tad to lower your expenses. But good for you that you had a skill that translated into a freelance contractor market. That doesn't work for everyone. I've never heard of freelance contractor cashiers for instance. I guess they could learn a skill first but, again, how do you support yourself during this time? It's good for you that you're willing to exploit someone's skills at half their value but not every business looks at it that way. I would imagine most managers would not want to hire someone at lower value or being over-qualified for because often that means the job is often a stepping stone to a better job. They see it as a risk of losing the investment they made in an employee that left at the first opportunity. Not that I'm saying your suggestions are necessarily bad ideas. It's just not always so easy a solution, such as people who suggest just picking up and moving to where the jobs are. With a little thought one can see that things are not always as simple as what they sometimes should be.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

"...Mailing unemployment insurance checks to people who aren't so much unemployed as unemployable is obviously not an ideal public policy. But simply doing nothing for them is cruel and insane..." Let's look at our choices presented by the author. 1) Each of us gives money from his pocket to pay people to do things nobody else wants them to do, whether sitting on the couch, sweeping the streets, whatever, or 2) Be insane and cruel. Certainly such a discussion must have a bit more nuance than that, right? I'm not going to dive into the argument, because there will be plenty of it, mostly non-productive. I just wanted to point out the premise the article is written around. Such premises do not make for good discussions by people of varying opinions.

nickff 13y ago
The author is obviously presenting a false-choice. One option he does not even mention is that there could be an open an honest public debate about what to do, and at least make a new program (not UI), which would specifically and accountably address his issues. Another thing which is not directly addressed is that when UI ends, people get jobs. There is a large amount of literature to support this. In many cases, it is simply not worth it for people to find a job, because UI and other benefits can pay up to 90% of someone's fully employed salary.

worldsayshi 13y ago

I don't get. Just create more jobs! There are plenty of things that need to be done and those unemployed shouldn't be left in the cold so we are going to pay them something anyway. The only "valid" reason there are able and unemployed people is "to scare the shit out of the middle class".

tekalon 13y ago
Who will create these jobs, part of the issue is that no one is willing to pay the amount it takes to create the jobs (pay rate, training, taxes, insurance). Unless absolutely necessary, companies don't want to hire extra people just to 'create jobs'.
- talmand 13y ago
  The usual answer is government. Many people have a negative view towards such things but can be useful if done correctly. Such as infrastructure projects that need to be done anyway. But alas, some people in the system don't agree with such a thought.
  - tekalon 13y ago
    It would be ideal, but the government has no money, and cities are going bankrupt. I would think some sort of tax incentives (or other something) for on job training, make hiring cheaper/easier or moving offshore jobs to local would be the better solutions.
    - talmand 13y ago
      True, usually only the federal government can support such projects because they print their money whenever it is needed. Tax incentives only go so far because the cost of having jobs local go beyond just those taxes. Payroll and its associated taxes can be expensive. Those tax incentives would have to somehow offset those costs as well.

worldsayshi 13y ago

crazy1van 13y ago

> The country failed these people first by letting the labor market stay so slack for so long that they became unhirable, and now we're going to fail them again. This seems suspect. People lose jobs for specific reasons. Maybe a specific sector is shrinking. Maybe automation is replacing workers of a certain skill set. Maybe cheap labor elsewhere caused your employer to move. Blaming "the country" for failing these people "by letting the labor market stay so slack" is meaningless in its vagueness.

twoodfin 13y ago
I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02. A milder recession to be sure (though you wouldn't know it from the political rhetoric at the time), but one that nonetheless hit employment hard. Within three years net employment was back where it had previously been, and the unemployment rate was back down in the 4%'s. There hadn't been massive spending; most of the deficit increase was lowered taxes and lowered revenue.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02. I'm not sure how Yglesias would, but to me the answer is obvious. The 2001 recession (official dates are still, IIRC, March-November 2001, though there was, around 2004, talk that the start date maybe should have been pinned somewhat earlier, I don't think it was ever actually revised), was, as you note, much shorter and, in part because there was a lot more access to credit, which supported a quick rebound of aggregate demand and a return to expansion and better top-line employment numbers (a number of factors, include tax policy changes which shifted the distribution of gains upwards, made it a fairly hollow expansion in which the bottom three quintiles all saw income declines and the next quintile was flat, however, which, help set the stage for a deeper recession with a much slower recovery when the bottom fell out of the housing market, since it was a lot harder for demand to rebound.)

geogra4 13y ago

We're living in a 21st century economy with 20th century ideas on work. The economy doesn't need 40+ hours from everyone to produce what we need. I agree with some others here that a Basic Income at a reasonable level would help out a lot.

kfcm 13y ago

Ames, IA. NCAA Div I university. Columbia, MO. NCAA Div I university. Lincoln, NE. NCAA Div I university. Iowa City, IA. NCAA Div I university. Fargo, ND. NCAA Div I university. Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA. NCAA Div I university. Mankato, MN. NCAA Div II university. St. Cloud,MN. NCAA Div II university. Rochester, MN. The town Mayo built/healthcare. Notice a pattern here? At least a third of the "metro" locations mentioned are homes to NCAA Division I or II universities. Low unemployment? Yep. Low-paying jobs (even for technical positions)? Yep. (A friend of mine from one of the above Div. I "metros" says semi-tongue-in-cheek: so many grads love the area and want to stay, a convenience store job requires a Masters). Rochester is essentially healthcare through Mayo. If you're not a healthcare professional, good luck. IBM used to have a major presence there, but I don't know how much now.

padobson 13y ago
What's most interesting about this is that higher education (through student loans) and healthcare (through medicare, medicaid, social security, etc) are two of the biggest industries subsidized by the government.

twoodfin 13y ago

If unemployment continues to drop or even accelerates its downward trend without a corresponding drop in the labor force participation rate, can we at least consider the possibility that some fraction of the "long term unemployed" would always remain unemployed up until the moment when they ceased being paid not to work? Or, if you want to be more generous, ceased facing a massive effective marginal "taxation" rate on their first couple thousand dollars of monthly income. I don't mean this as a moral judgment. I can imagine a host of situations where being paid $20,000 a year or so to evaluate your employment options and otherwise spend a lot of time doing non-wage-earning activities like spending time with your kids would make perfect sense. I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill.

hfsktr 13y ago
"I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill." I was on unemployment for a little over a year. I had to apply to 2 jobs a week and every so often (only twice) I had to spend 3 hours (I felt a waste of time but I am sure there were people who did need the help) at employment services to some sort of meeting (called something like 'workforce re-entry evaluation') where they gave advice on how to fill out applications etc. They also had classes there that counted towards the job search requirements (learn to use web, word, excel, etc). You had to bring your job search records for them to look over also. I know there are people who just sit on their ass but I really would have preferred to be earning some money. I felt bad enough but then to have people say 'just get a job' like I wasn't even trying. Half of them didn't believe that the gas station send a rejection letter (at least they had the courtesy). One of the problems was that this area isn't a tech hub. The bigger cities are but just not paying the bills so you can move away and see if a job works isn't a good solution (driving 6 hours for an interview at your own expense is always fun though). I got way less than $20K that year. At least it helped show how little I could live^H^H^H^H survive on.

jasonkester 13y ago

It's comforting to know that this, along with so many other things that most people have to take for granted, doesn't apply to software developers. Our little corner of the world is still so employee-friendly that it's really hard to damage your career in any meaningful way if you're truly, provably good at what you do. Certainly not by taking the odd five years off to start a startup, travel the world, or play pickup basketball. You'll still have your network when you decide to come back. Those guys will be nicely distributed across dozens of tech companies, all of which need developers like they need air.

vectorpush 13y ago
It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software. In addition to that, increased competition from a global remote work force as well as increased immigration sponsored by the tech lobby is going to crush western developer affluence. In another 15 years, things may be looking pretty grim for the average developer.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  > It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software. Couldn't you have said the same thing 15 years ago? I don't think anything significant has changed since then. Another problem with this thinking is software is never done, it just evolves and changes. It also needs some serious maintenance. Even if the job of software developers will be done by software, someone still needs to maintain and improve that software (unless we get self-writing software, which I don't see any time soon). Another thing that keeps changing is hardware. Switching from computers to phones and tablets and the web created completely new markets for phone and web apps (written in Java/JavaScript) which weren't there a few years ago. Who's to say there aren't going to be new markets a few years from now? (For example, we'll need developers to write Google Glass apps). In addition, even after all this evolution, current frameworks and languages are still horrendous. The most popular languages right now are C++, Java, JavaScript and PHP, all of them horrible to program in (more or less). I think there's still plenty of work to do in this direction.

shams93 13y ago

You also have older workers although well educated a nd skilled, pushed out of the economy via ageism but still far from retirement.

fragsworth 13y ago

Long-term unemployed have always been doomed. However, a high unemployment rate (suppose 15%) means that the average person is out of a job 15% of the time. In most cases, this is not really that devastating. The problem right now is the unemployment benefits last so long that you can stay out of a job to the point that you become irrelevant. Learning new skills takes effort, and usually requires you to take a pay cut as you get an entry-level job in a new field. Everyone can do it, though. Instead, though, we are incentivising long-term laziness by granting money to people who aren't working. I know at least two people who are just living off their unemployment checks and not making any effort to find real work. If the unemployed are getting a check, then people who are employed should get that same check while employed. I think that's the only way to keep the incentive to work. (This goes back to the idea of a minimum guaranteed income)

prodigal_erik 13y ago
Apocryphally, most people are only a couple of paychecks ahead of their bills, and would have to default on something when faced with 15% less income.

billyjobob 13y ago

I'm from a country with a welfare state, where if you are unemployed the government pay your rent and give you a small amount of money to buy food until such time as you are employed again. Not understanding how the American system works, I find this article confusing. It sounds like there is a time limit on how long someone can claim unemployment benefit? So what happens after this time runs out, they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death? Even if you don't care about them on a human level, that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people. Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel.

lisper 13y ago
> they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death? Yeah, pretty much, though most of them can subsist for a long time on handouts before they actually die. > that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people Yeah, pretty much. This is one of the reasons the U.S. has the highest incarceration rates and health care costs of any industrialized country by a wide margin. > Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel. If only it were fiction.
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  This is insanely inaccurate so I downvoted you. There are many, many kinds of assistance available to people. It's not an either/or situation where you run out of unemployment and then your next option is death by exposure and starvation. Come on.
  - lisper 13y ago
    > There are many, many kinds of assistance available to people Yeah? Like what? > It's not an either/or situation where you run out of unemployment and then your next option is death by exposure and starvation. Come on. It's not like you run out of unemployment and die from exposure the next day. It's a very slow, gradual process. Many people survive for years on the street before they succumb. But unless something changes, or they are taken in by friends or family, the vast majority of the long-term unemployed will end up on the streets (or in prison) and sooner or later they will die there, because the sad fact of the matter is that at the moment there is no place else for them to go.