44 ms·

The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

264 points by cjdulberger 12y ago

MCRed 12y ago
Look ma, that's me! Free of a soul crushing corporate job, back to doing a "startup", I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in! I think there are a lot of people out there like me. I have some money coming from side projects, several opportunities to grow that, and several opportunities for new side projects. And quite a long personal runway before I have to "get a job" again. If I can get to personal ramen profitability, that would be great. And if my cofounders and I get a real startup off the ground that can pay us salaries.... well, then I can start showing up in statistics as employed again. But either way, it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age 20 years ago. And that's a huge shift-- in opportunity towards the individual.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  > I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in! How are people who don't have a meaningful source of income and who are dependent on their parents for shelter any more in control of their destinies than corporate worker bees?
  - gutnor 12y ago
    It is not only that - even when you run your own company you can and often are effectively dependent on your clients/market ( especially that big client making 80% of your revenue ), or the need of your dependents ( you still need to pay your mortgage ) . That's a common complain here on HN of founder "selling out", "losing the original spirit", ... There is a cultural bias for entrepreneur, especially in the US (that's not a bad thing BTW), so struggling directly against the market is seen as more glamorous then through a corporate structure/middleman. In the end, you are as in control of your destiny as much as your wealth permit, no matter how you made that wealth in the first place.
    - MCRed 12y ago
      Here's the difference: When the market says something, I can react to it and improve immediately. For me the market is large and variety, it's not like a few people make up %80 of the income. Working for a corporation, in the most recent case, meant dealing with people who were so incompetent that they did everything I can think of to interfere with us reacting to the market. You know the saying about how people with nothing to do create work for others? Well, when you're a software team and the boss has zero software skills, or understanding, or care, you end up in a lot of pointless meetings. Seriously, I would get interrupted 200 times in a day. (I counted once). So, more risk, less secure money, but avoiding harassment, verbal abuse, manipulation, gas lighting, and 200 interruptions a day is a huge positive trade off. For me at least. Plus I get to see my parents for a few months while I pick out the next place I'm going to live.
      - gutnor 12y ago
        You are just comparing a shit job to a good job, and well the shit job is shittier than the good one. Let's run with your example - what would have been your boss opinion ? Or if your business is growing and you need more people, how will you treat them and how should they feel ? You have a good job in a hot sector, enjoy it, don't try to generalise to everybody or other sectors. Actually, the article is all about people that don't share our luck.
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    Not all corporate jobs are soulless, mind crushing Orwellian nightmares, and nothing prevents you from looking for a fulfilling job if you are unhappy with your present one, especially in our field.
    - MCRed 12y ago
      True, and I did spend some time looking. It's kinda sad, though, how our field seems to have devolved in the past 15 years. Startups today are much more corporate, more likely to be run by biz guys without appreciation for software, etc. Here's a good litmus test: If they have an open floor plan they clearly don't care about developers. If they BRAG about having an open floor plan-- and so many of them do-- they are terrible. Run away.
- brandonmenc 12y ago
  > it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age 20 years ago. Less than 6% of workers are working computer or math jobs - of any kind - which suggests that the overwhelming majority of people still have a difficult time when they're listed as "unemployed."
  - IndianAstronaut 12y ago
    One common trend I have seen in my social circle is the lack of any employable skills. They may or may not have college degrees, but in general their degrees did not give them concrete job skills or they don't have a degree and no skilled trade. What would ideally happen is people learn a skilled trade if they are stuck on the job market. This training should also happen in high school.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Except the education system is bad at picking winners. What's in demand when you're in highschool is not what's in demand by the time you're entering the workforce.
      - rjsw 12y ago
        I remember finding that "Computer Programmer" wasn't listed as a possible job when we got careers advice as early teens.
        arethuza 12y ago
        My 15 year old son got recommended the following options by a career guidance system his school uses: - Lawyer - Town planner - Royal Marine Officer I'd love to know the "logic" that led from his interests/skills to that selection! [NB Only one of these got the reaction "don't do that" from his mother and I].
      - shoover 12y ago
        How do they pick? Maybe they need help picking better. Seems like there's a lot of people around here interested in trends and intelligence that could help with that.
- marcell 12y ago
  It is great that you are able to do this, but not that your situation is not the one described in the article. The article discusses men who only qualify for low/no skill jobs paying $10-15/hr. That is markedly different from a tech startup cofounder who could get a software engineering job paying $100k+ with benefits.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    yeah, a big problem with the whole "Don't need BigCo's job cuz I'm running a SV startup!" narrative is that it's really only accessible for people who already belonged to pretty privileged classes (exceptions exist, obviously.) A portion of the population does not get opportunities to develop these skills and were once allowed low-skilled jobs that paid "decently" but have now found themselves squeezed due to inflation and companies hoarding cash instead of spending it.
    - shutupalready 12y ago
      > companies hoarding cash instead of spending it I've heard this sentiment many times but I've wondered if there's an economic fallacy there. Would the economy be better off if lots of companies stopped hoarding cash and hired lots of new employees? Or would there be side-effects like inflation, or some effect of pulling out cash from whatever it was invested in, etc.? Serious question.
      - barry-cotter 12y ago
        > I've heard this sentiment many times but I've wondered if there's an economic fallacy there. There is, it's a confusion between money and capacity. That money is an option, the possibility of getting people to do things for you. Unused money is paper. > Would the economy be better off if lots of companies stopped hoarding cash and hired lots of new employees? The economy is an abstraction. It can't be better off. But if the companies that have the money had productive ways to spend it they would be doing so. The fact that there aren't that many productive ways to use the money is why the interest rate is so low. The interest rate is the cost of renting money.
- tluyben2 12y ago
  I have never had 'a job' and had startups (and later mature companies) since I was 15 (I am 40 now). I am not sure what age you are, but you need to know this thing for sure if you are past, I think, around 30 as running a life like this can be very painful. There simply is a tiny chance of 'big success' while most just live in almost poverty the first 20-30 years of doing this. That's also why I think you are probably young and haven't seen that yet ; most give up and tell stories to their kids later about it. Not to squash your enthusiasm; just saying that 'control of my destiny' is mostly not true at all; you are being lived by actual constraints of life. If you get a mortgage, kids, spouse, investors etc these constraints can easily 'live' you instead of you controlling anything. I was lucky, but just saying to be careful in thinking this and keep tabs on the 'do I actually still like this' factor. A regular job, for most of my friends who started out with me, was a blessing.
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  - MCRed 12y ago
    I'm older than you. Have done this before, spent 6 years "unemployed" traveling the world before I "got a job" that turned out to be a terrible decision. Of course you don't have control over your destiny to the point of just wishing you had a million bucks... but I also now don't have a psychotic boss whose only experience has been in the military micromanaging software development and doing everything he can to "control" things without any understanding of software development.
    - tluyben2 12y ago
      Indeed that's a reason I do it as well and I applaud all for going that route ; I'm just saying that if you do it for that reason you might turn out in a smaller prison than actually having a boss. But if you are not greedy, don't care about materialistic things too much, know how to save money for a rainy day and have a family that supports that way of living, I wouldn't want it any other way.
- LargeCompanies 12y ago
  I've lived with a parent (it's a big house they'd alone otherwise here) for I guess too many years then I've should. Also I'm old and my g/f who is similar age of five years also lives with a parent. Though she is getting antsy and wants kids and she only has a few years left. I want a family too but have been holding off for that big moment when my team and I start generating money and or sell our work. Ugh will that happen I don't know but I need to get back into the workforce and do our startup on the side. This what I was doing for the last year and half until I lost yet another developer job because of my incessant need to startup. I've lost two jobs in the two and half years because my bosses found out about my startup or we become friendly and I talk about it a lot. Ugh I'm sorta feeling stuck professionally and tomorrow I start my 3rd incubator yet im unemployed. You might want to reconsider startup pursuits after your early to mid 30s.
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    I might be naive, but I don't see having to choose self-employment or salaried work as a all-or-nothing, no-going-back decision. You could easily secure a well paid job for a few years, and save enough to support working on a start-up or starting a consulting business. If things do not go as planned, I can see no problems in going back to being employed, since your skills won´t have withered in the meantime, and possibily learned new ones. It seems to me that the startup culture is seen sometimes as a "get rich quick" scheme, where the goal is to retire at 25. A normal career in most professions lasts 30/40 years...
  - sumedh 12y ago
    > we become friendly and I talk about it a lot. Loose lips sink ships.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    I'm in my 40s and have been working for and with startups since my early 20s. I'd rather scrape by doing what I love than make bank and hating my life. Of course, making bank and loving it would be the ideal. But its not like I think the odds are huge. One thing I am doing is building up my side businesses. Get enough side income going to live on and you can work for a startup at low risk. Not the case when you have a family, of course.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  I don't think the majority of the long-term unemployed are unemployed because they're working on tech startups.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    I don't know the proportions at all, didn't mean to imply the majority were. However, it is a trend that there are a lot more people becoming independant and making their money online via various ways (not all of which are startups, most of which are probably what would be called "lifestyle businesses" here, though I hate that term) and thus not counted on the "employment rolls".
    - emodendroket 12y ago
      Maybe, but most of those people aren't voluntarily doing that, are underpaid, and don't have any chance of making it big with what they're doing. Basically, all of the hardship of being independent without the rewards. (think of freelance journalists working for peanuts, or often putting stuff out for free for "exposure," for instance)
- josephschmoe 12y ago
  Actually, I think this is less common now than it was 20 years ago.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    Well, 30 years ago there was no global internet full of knowledge and allowing collaboration-- I had to go to the college library. There was also no global internet allowing for an instant global market to be serviced from the middle of nowhere. If you started a business in podunk, your market was the podunk area. (For the most part, there was mail order and stuff, but that still had a higher barrier to entry than the internet does now.) So I think things have gotten easier and a lot more people are doing it. I'm interested in hearing why you think the opposite-- I bet you're observing a different trend than I am focusing on. (eg both trends can be true)
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 12y ago
  I don't think there are "quite a lot of people out there" like you, but I guess it depends on what "a lot" is. It's great what you're doing, but you are likely in the minority. Most people do not have the luxury or skills to do that.
brandonmenc 12y ago
> The places with the highest rates of male nonwork include parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas and Michigan. The areas of high unemployment in Arizona and New Mexico overlap almost exactly with the Indian reservations. A problem deserving its own analysis.
- hessenwolf 12y ago
  Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?
  - db48x 12y ago
    The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      Perhaps you should look at the conditions that were imposed on these areas. Horrible government education and health care, relocation of individuals resulting in horrific suicide rates, boarding schools that beat students for keeping their culture and language, US government mishandling resources to the point the Dept of Interior was required to cut their internet connection multiple times. Never mind the oil and uranium problems. Its a culture problem, but not from the Native American side. The current generation suffered all these things and is trying to dig out of a hole. The next generation is better poised to grow as the culture is returning. Also, I would love for you to go to the Seminoles and read them your comment. I expect they would have a words. I would imagine these stats also don't cover pow-wow circuit youth very well, but that would take research. As a side note, this is the most ignorant and racist comment I have read on HN.
      - 12y ago
bruceb 12y ago
There are books on this phenomenon. Part of what they say is now men have access to their basic needs with out needing to work as much. Entertainment is abundant and relatively cheap and sex isn't tied to marriage. You can lounge around and be if not exactly satisfied, at least not terrible wanting for stuff. Of course these guys are screwed when it comes to retirement.
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- return0 12y ago
  just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed.
  - morgante 12y ago
    > just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed. Why? I'm pretty sure I'll be totally fine in retirement (predicted savings of $5M+).
    - nilkn 12y ago
      He's probably referring to the average American, and someone with a predicted savings in the mid seven figures is certainly not among that demographic.
    - VLM 12y ago
      Everyone can still be screwed at the same time you're OK. Unless you're implying you're just average median dude. Some experiments can be run in a spreadsheet. I assumed 40 years of work (optimistic) and google reports a median personal income of 32140/yr and average savings rate of 3.2%. Shadowstats reports an average inflation rate around 5%, thats sounds about right. The S+P 500 total return over the last half century has been 7% but it oscillates insanely from -5 to +17 percent per decade. I think it very unrealistic to assume the 50s or 90s will ever happen again, but whatever, I feel optimistic this morning. I modeled in a 1% annual decline in income, which is lower than actual but sounds vaguely realistic. My spreadsheet model shows an inflation adjusted retirement nest egg of $51K for joe 6 pack median middle class dude assuming its never dipped into for medical, educational, or unemployment issues for J6P or his kids or parents (in other words almost everyone will not have the money). I'm also assuming smooth economic growth (LOL) for best compounding results. It still affects you as most investment advisors assume 0% inflation, 10% rates of economic growth, etc. In a world of poverty for almost everyone, that sounds rather optimistic. Some other interesting experiments... 15% annual growth rate still only gets joe 6 pack to about 10% of your goal. Joe6Pack at 1% annual wage increase (which is totally unrealistic in era of long term decline) and 15% annual economic growth rate (LOL) and triple the median savings rate at 10% of gross income being saved for 40 years and no unemployment, medical issues, or educational costs for J6P or his parents or kids (LOL) is still only about 1/3 of your goal.
mbrameld 12y ago
Why do they exclude men in the military from their numbers?
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- maxerickson 12y ago
  They aren't really market participants when it comes to the labor force.
  - robotic 12y ago
    Why aren't they considered market participants?
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      Military law punishes them for quitting. (Walking away from a civilian employment contract wouldn't normally result in criminal charges)
- robotic 12y ago
  I like in Columbus, GA, which is right next to Fort Benning, one of the largest Army bases in USA. If these soldiers were included in the stats, then our numbers would look better.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
>Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers Classic lump of labor fallacy.
- bildung 12y ago
  Classic lump of labor fallacy. That fallacy is far from proven, see e.g. http://econpapers.repec.org/article/tafrsocec/v_3a65_3ay_3a2007_3ai_3a3_3ap_3a279-291.htm http://econpapers.repec.org/article/tafrsocec/v_3a65_3ay_3a2...
  - briandear 12y ago
    Here in France that fallacy is a clear as the baguette in the corner bakery.
- geebee 12y ago
  You've alerted us to the existence of a fallacy, but you make no effort to explain what the fallacy is or how the argument you are refuting has committed this fallacy. You did this in a previous discussion with me as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296 Of course, you are absolutely free to do this if you wish. But I did take the time to explain why I felt you had misdiagnosed the situation, and explained how the position I held was not undermined by the lump of labor fallacy. Just my own opinion, but if you're going to cite this fallacy, I do think you should be explain how you feel it relates to the current discussion and be prepared to engage in a debate about whether it is relevant.
  - IndianAstronaut 12y ago
    Fair enough. The main reason why there is a lump of labor fallacy is that it rests on the fact that there is just a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. A fixed amount of jobs means that thers is only a fixed amount of goods and services people desire. But this is wrong because human wants and desires are unlimited. This is the basic condition in economics. So in theory there is an infinite amount of jobs to be done to cater to our infinite wants. Now, there are structural reasons for why there isn't universal employment. These can range from government policies, to technological reasons. If people want multistoried houses, and builders can build them, they will have jobs but if the government has policies which block those houses, the builders will not have those jobs. Another thing people want is to travel into space, say a visit to alpha centauri. There may be tourism operator jobs who can do that but technology does not exist which can take us there. The main focus of government policies to promote and encourage job growth should be on building technology to promote new job creating industries, promoting skills growth to manage these industries, and removing or modifying policies which hinder job growth. If trade or immigration caused a loss of jobs, the 90s would have been a time of high unemployment. It wasn't because a new industry came up to generate jobs and other jobs were created to service those workers. The same goes for policies to shorten hours or promote early retirement.
ottocoder 12y ago
I know this isn't entirely on point but I couldn't help thinking of Mr. Jaggers replying to Pip's question "what will I do?" with "Be a gentleman, of course!" (Dickens reference) when I saw the title.
vidyesh 12y ago
There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came to concluding this topic. The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of every 100. The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older people end up creating more jobs. The increase in unemployment rate : Yes, this contradicts with the above mentioned increase in jobs point but this should also be a factor. This also is affected by people not-from US who work in US. The Shift in Generation : 14 years brings/builds a very different minded person and this person might have a different approach to living. The higher standard of living : This also is one of the reasons why older people are still working and won't leave their jobs as their value is appreciated, helps pay the debt and they could satisfy all their needs to live a life of luxury(?) and fulfil all their ambitions.
- coob 12y ago
  Middle East wars creating more disabled people.
  - vidyesh 12y ago
    And the article very precisely says >(People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures.)
    - coob 12y ago
      Are veterans?
Doctor_Fegg 12y ago
"Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead" Surprised that "read HN" isn't listed as one of the "insteads". Which reminds me, I really ought to do some work.
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- stdbrouw 12y ago
  HN is not the place for contentless whining.
  - NicoJuicy 12y ago
    It was perhaps written to long and you probably have a different opinion than mine. Noticing you are a Belgian ;) TLDR; To much people just strike against the current governement and unwillingness to work (longer) here in Belgium. Because you're a Belgian and probably have a personal opinion: Jean Luc Dehaene did 3 step-indexes and he was a hero. Now, they want to do 1 without the socialists and it's like Belgium is on fire. The strikers get 30 € / day and unions get 313 € / month for every unemployed person... Do you think that's normal/good? I'm not claiming "right" os good, nor do i claim "left" is good. A combination of both would be good, without the extremism! But most of all, i'd love to see some common sense in unions and some radical politicians.
mamurphy 12y ago
I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really makes people reexamine their decisions.
- marktangotango 12y ago
  At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life. All those plans and ambitions? You've had 40 years to act, if you haven't done something yet, chances are you're not going to. Its all down hill from there. Hopefully you've got a family you can put you're energy into. At least this was how i felt 40+, ymmv.
  - 3pt14159 12y ago
    I'm not 40 yet, I'm 29, but I feel like I've only had 9 years to act so far and I have another 30-40. Look at how old Elon Musk is and he's finally hitting his stride. Still got time man.
    - will_work4tears 12y ago
      He's 43, but your comment makes it sound you think he's older. I'm not sure he's a great example. He has inertia and a lot of money made from when he was much younger. Take an average person at that age, middle class income, family, etc, and see if they can accomplish life changing goals that they just started chasing. I'm not going to agree with the poster above that claimed that "At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life." but I think as a generalization it's probably closer to truth than feels comfortable (I'm 37).
  - philbarr 12y ago
    How depressing! I'm 37 and still feel I've got loads to learn and try out. Although I note that many of my peers are planning their escape routes to retirement. If I try to create a startup I'll be doing it on my own.
  - 12y ago
hessenwolf 12y ago
That's an awesome graph. I mean, we could say some things like that the thickness of the gray bit is not so clear, or that it might be better if smoothed, perhaps the legend would be better elsewhere than in the coloured areas, but... it is still a totally expressive and elegant graphic.
- aragot 12y ago
  Yes it made me realize the rise of retirement-aged persons who don't retire. "Can't" retire? What a shift, in only 14 years!
  - hessenwolf 12y ago
    I did a lot of work a while back doing longevity projections, i.e., stochastic models of the rate of change of mortality rates at different ages as time goes by. It is a bit of a trend that pension funds might choose to offset their risk by entering into longevity swaps, which work like interest rate swaps, swapping floating payments for fixed payments. Anyway, I attended a few conferences on aging, and all that fun. One thing that stuck out was that, in Germany at least, the ratio of workers to retirees of 4:1 will be more like 2:1 when I reach the current age of retirement. Another is that you need to consider years of abled life. A last is that I will never retire, and probably you won't either. Note that, in Bismarck's time, life expectancy was about 55: One persistent myth about the German program is that it adopted age 65 as the standard retirement age because that was Bismarck's age. This myth is important because Germany was one of the models America looked to in designing its own Social Security plan; and the myth is that America adopted age 65 as the age for retirement benefits because this was the age adopted by Germany when they created their program. In fact, Germany initially set age 70 as the retirement age (and Bismarck himself was 74 at the time) and it was not until 27 years later (in 1916) that the age was lowered to 65. By that time, Bismarck had been dead for 18 years.
    - saalweachter 12y ago
      Another myth is that the designers of Social Security in the US did not expect lifespans to increase over time; we are actually a little below target right now on expected lifespans.
blueskin_ 12y ago
De-paywalled: https://archive.today/nOnpV https://archive.today/nOnpV
cJ0th 12y ago
> To the extent that rising nonwork reflects more men graduating from school, that’s good news. Male high school graduation rates have risen 5 percentage points since 2000, and people with more education earn more and are less likely to be disabled later in life. I am not positive this computes. People with more education might earn more now but that doesn't mean that their wages or the amount of jobs in their domains won't go down when more people have a degree.
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ttty 12y ago
>When more older people are working, they are earning money that they will then spend in ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example. But... older people earn 2-3 times more than a younger one (at, least in Portugal). So for each old people there could be 2-3 younger working. So if you lay off 100 old people you can get ~2500 younger people working. Of course, I doubt that the productivity will be lower per person, but here you are paid by how old are you (not, experience) * what you know
mkingston 12y ago
(A little facetiously, but..) Perhaps this is just the decrease of work required that was historically expected by economists, being applied unevenly. Of course there's nothing in the article to suggest many of these people are happy.
blazespin 12y ago
The problem is there is a multiplier affect from technology today that causes unemployment. The average IQ required to be economically relevant is increasing each year.
- zo1 12y ago
  Do you have any alternatives to what we seem to be doing at the moment? Namely, propping those individuals up from life-failure by state aide programs funded by people that are able to sustain themselves and supposedly others.
  - marvin 12y ago
    I would say that this is actually a good solution. It's lopsided today since we don't officially acknowledge that this is what we're doing, but if the trend continues, you and I will also eventually be hit by this development (unless we're exceedingly lucky). Global wealth tax on large personal fortunes (say, 0.2-1.0% per annum of fortunes greater than $2MM) and even redistribution to everyone will make the solution more transparent and fair.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  It's not as though if everyone were a Harvard-educated brainiac it would suddenly be possible for everyone to have high-paying jobs.
  - zanny 12y ago
    Well, one, being Harvard educated does not necessarily mean you are really a brainiac. Above the curve certainly, but you still have deviations from the mean in both directions. And no, even if everyone were a genius, there are limited funds allocated by geniuses to pay geniuses to be geniuses. But if everyone were brilliant and have complete information and comprehensive educations about everything, either we are already in post-scarcity singularity utopia or we are imminently going to get there because you have hundreds of millions of geniuses capable to work on it, and geniuses running the system capable of realizing that potential and working to make it happen. So either you are in a state where employment no longer matters, or your geniuses are smart enough to devote all their overflow resources to getting there, since they are all geniuses, they can all contribute to that end goal. We simultaneously have people who just do not have the skills or mental capabilities to contribute, and leadership that is too ignorant or selfish to acknowledge the benefits of investing in research and science, and thus neither is possible.
npx 12y ago
Are there any notable instances of unqualified founders beating the odds and starting a successful business?
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wirefloss 12y ago
The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all. Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".
manuelriel 12y ago
None of this is new or surprising. It would be more interesting to apply this kind of visualization to industries, % or part-time jobs, freelance workers, etc.
ctdonath 12y ago
Where does minimum wage [objectively] fit in? If an employer can't pay someone what a job is worth, either the job doesn't get done or a machine is found to do it - leaving someone without the opportunity for a job. Yes, it may not be a "living wage", but no wage is even less desirable. I've started using Taco Bell's remote ordering app. The clerk, seeing how I'd ordered (not using his services), yesterday thanked me for making his job easier. Couldn't help thinking that rather than happy, he should be scared: with all the talk about pushing for $15/hr minimum wages, coupled with automation of order-taking, he's facing prospects of no job instead of an easy one. I know minimum wage is meant to help, but it only contributes to increased unemployment and inflation.
- Malarkey73 12y ago
  [Objectively] in countries where a minimum wage has been introduced at a higher rate than the US and is reviewed each year it has pushed up wages but had little effect on employment. e.g. see for instance this discussion http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-markets http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-m... Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern for worker is nauseating. If workers are having to top up wages with food stamps and government aid then the business, management, and shareholders rather than the worker are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer. And if you let companies lower wages to compete then the bad employers drive out the good. Far better to make them compete on the product or service not how badly they are willing to treat people.
  - jongraehl 12y ago
    1. min-wage raises are so modest and so slowly phased-in (in the US) so to not produce smoking-gun employment drops, and employers prepare in advance for them, so sloppy underpowered studies don't show any large effect. marginal effects are small and so you need a powerful study. 2. do you want people who receive food stamps etc. and aren't hireable at $8/hr to have any legal on-the-books employment options or not? either way they're getting the food stamps. 3. I personally would rather see more Costcos+Trader Joes than Wal-marts+McDonalds, so i want to believe your 'bad employers winning' unless we force higher pay, but presumably people won't work for bad employers, so i don't see where your forecast is coming from. anyway it seems a little cargo-cult. you can't just start paying $20/hr instead of $8 and suddenly beat Costco.
JumpCrisscross 12y ago
The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of This American Life [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersection of these trends, as documented by This American Life, lands us in the curious situation of state governments encouraging their unemployed to seek disability benefits (thereby shifting their burden onto the federal budget). In the short run, state unemployment and federal disability benefits have similar effects. Social stability is enhanced through buying off the poor. But long-term disability is not designed for the under-trained. Its means-testing paradigm discourages even the exploration of employment options which might jeopardise the applicant's disability status. Thus a one-way valve to dependency on the state's largesse. [1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/t...
- hyperpape 12y ago
  There is also an issue with disability benefits where they are structured with disincentives to work. The motivation to not pay disability to people who can work is understandable, but for people who can work some but whose disability hinders their ability to get a full-time job or one that's not highly paid, it's a disaster. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/07/aid-for-disabilities-should-look-more-like-the-eitc.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/07/aid... This is a point that's not fundamentally liberal or conservative. Both sides should be interested in improving programs that have gratuitous barriers to work.
  - lstyls 12y ago
    Totally agree, it should be obvious no matter your politics that the way disability benefits are currently structured incentivize people to not work, and serve as a de facto welfare system. The problem is that it's going the be impossible to get an agreement on the solution. Conservatives would take this as an opportunity to slash disability benefits and walk away. Liberals would look toward new government programs.
joshuahedlund 12y ago
This related article, also dated today, was linked at the bottom, and is a longer read with more/different details and stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-va...
theorique 12y ago
This article describes the growth of disability benefits and the way they are dispensed: thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/09/how_to_be_mean_to_your_kids.html
jokoon 12y ago
I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life. "what they do instead" Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience, motivation and networking. I took anti depressants for 4 years but am not so unhealthy in term of mental health... I'm back at school again, for some equivalent degree, but on 1 year, I have an internship starting wednesday, I really hope it will hook me to some job opportunities. If I don't get the degree nor a job, well I could really try to start some crowdfunded game project or social network, but I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers. Maybe I'm really incompetent.
- the_real_bto 12y ago
  I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles. One wonderful thing about software development, is that credentials and pedigree are not required. If you can make software, you can get a job. Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs. I've been writing software professionally for about 15 years or so. Before that I had flunked out of an electrical engineering program a couple times, and was waiting tables to get by. I considered myself a failure. There is always hope. Writing software isn't really about intelligence, although it probably helps. It isn't really about knowing the "one right way to develop software." It is more about being willing to admit you are wrong. Learn from your mistakes. Also a good dose of stubbornness is needed to deal with tools that don't work properly. Sometimes the documentation will lie to you. It helps to not take the little failures too personally. Best of luck to you.
  - jokoon 12y ago
    thanks :)
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    > Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs. I'm more than a little frustrated that the tech sector hasn't taken this to heart more. There's a lot of day-to-day work that we expect developers to do that anyone with good grades in high school or a liberal arts associates degree could do. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a low ratio of administrative assistants to developers considering how much developers are paid. Perhaps it would be better if developers were paid hourly or otherwise went home at 5 p.m. like normal professionals.
icantthinkofone 12y ago
One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town and never gets a reply. If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.
- TheBeardKing 12y ago
  Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?
  - icantthinkofone 12y ago
    I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.
    - humanrebar 12y ago
      I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't gangbusters, but he could help us out with <grunt work that's piling up> if he's willing to work for the right price." My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a job with more responsibility. Am I missing something? How else are we going to get all these unemployed men retrained in another field, especially growing ones like tech?
      - john_b 12y ago
        If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance, 401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of the cost of retaining someone. If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these types of hires are lower. What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs (health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing the costs of such programs.
emodendroket 12y ago
I occasionally see the rise of the single-breadwinner family where a woman has a job celebrated as forward progress for gender equality or something, but that's misguided. Frankly, a lot of men are just unable to work and then their families are forced to subsist on the woman's job, which still pays, on average, less. Newspapers talk a lot about high-powered female executives with stay-at-home husbands and so on, but that's a small sliver, not somehow representative of the trend.
- golemotron 12y ago
  A more subtle point is that the incentive structure for men to work had has evaporated. In divorce (which is largely initiated by women), men stand to lose more in alimony and child support. The economics say that if you marry (and far more people decide not to do these days), you probably shouldn't be the sole breadwinner and you certainly shouldn't earn more than your wife. I know a number of couples where the man just doesn't work and is supported by his wife. I don't think it's a conscious choice, it's unconscious and based on incentive.
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    Alimony isn't just magically awarded in every divorce case, you know.
    - golemotron 12y ago
      True, but child-support and the children go overwhelmingly to the mother.
      - scarecrowbob 12y ago
        I might be wrong, but something like 4% of divorce cases have custody determined by the court, so that's a decision made by fathers (I have custody of my kids, and had no problem getting it, FWIW).
        12y ago
wtbob 12y ago
> People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures. One of these is not like the other… Everyone in the military (at least, who's not also imprisoned) should count as fully-employed.
- bachmeier 12y ago
  I think the reason they excluded those in the military is to allow an apples-to-apples comparison through time. It could be argued that the large number of draftees through the early 1970's forced some otherwise nonemployed into employment.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known career path for many young males.
    - innguest 12y ago
      It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth. Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.
      - protomyth 12y ago
        So, excluding all government jobs would be appropriate? No police or fire in your numbers either?
        innguest 12y ago
        The government owes $118 trillion total (adding unfunded liabilities). When it can balance its budget than maybe we can have this discussion. Otherwise, anyone can steal $18 trillion from the masses under the pretense of using it for the public good - when really all (yes, 100%) it does is pay debt interest according to the government's own report on how tax money is spent - and "create" several jobs for you as well. So no, those shouldn't count unless you want to keep on living on fantasy land, believe government's inflation numbers (and close your eyes when you go grocery shopping), and ignore the fact those government "jobs" do not make us more competitive to other countries. You don't win in the global economy by giving everyone jobs, but by allowing people to create real jobs that compete with other countries so that we as a population become wealthier.
ap22213 12y ago
As of 2011, there were 3.5M disabled veterans, of which 800K were receiving significant disability benefits. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff21.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_...
patja 12y ago
The article states that every month the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics asks all men who are not working and not receiving unemployment benefits what their situation is. How does this process work? Having been in this population, I know for certain nobody from the government has ever asked me for this information.
- akgerber 12y ago
  Not all of them, just a random sample of the population which includes some of them: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/ http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
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randomname2 12y ago
"The decline of traditional pension plans and rising education levels, which are associated with less physically demanding jobs, may both help explain why the elderly are working longer." Nice spin there, NYT.
- innguest 12y ago
  Nice catch of the propaganda machine at work!

264 points by cjdulberger 12y ago

MCRed 12y ago

Look ma, that's me! Free of a soul crushing corporate job, back to doing a "startup", I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in! I think there are a lot of people out there like me. I have some money coming from side projects, several opportunities to grow that, and several opportunities for new side projects. And quite a long personal runway before I have to "get a job" again. If I can get to personal ramen profitability, that would be great. And if my cofounders and I get a real startup off the ground that can pay us salaries.... well, then I can start showing up in statistics as employed again. But either way, it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age 20 years ago. And that's a huge shift-- in opportunity towards the individual.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
> I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in! How are people who don't have a meaningful source of income and who are dependent on their parents for shelter any more in control of their destinies than corporate worker bees?
- gutnor 12y ago
  It is not only that - even when you run your own company you can and often are effectively dependent on your clients/market ( especially that big client making 80% of your revenue ), or the need of your dependents ( you still need to pay your mortgage ) . That's a common complain here on HN of founder "selling out", "losing the original spirit", ... There is a cultural bias for entrepreneur, especially in the US (that's not a bad thing BTW), so struggling directly against the market is seen as more glamorous then through a corporate structure/middleman. In the end, you are as in control of your destiny as much as your wealth permit, no matter how you made that wealth in the first place.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    Here's the difference: When the market says something, I can react to it and improve immediately. For me the market is large and variety, it's not like a few people make up %80 of the income. Working for a corporation, in the most recent case, meant dealing with people who were so incompetent that they did everything I can think of to interfere with us reacting to the market. You know the saying about how people with nothing to do create work for others? Well, when you're a software team and the boss has zero software skills, or understanding, or care, you end up in a lot of pointless meetings. Seriously, I would get interrupted 200 times in a day. (I counted once). So, more risk, less secure money, but avoiding harassment, verbal abuse, manipulation, gas lighting, and 200 interruptions a day is a huge positive trade off. For me at least. Plus I get to see my parents for a few months while I pick out the next place I'm going to live.
    - gutnor 12y ago
      You are just comparing a shit job to a good job, and well the shit job is shittier than the good one. Let's run with your example - what would have been your boss opinion ? Or if your business is growing and you need more people, how will you treat them and how should they feel ? You have a good job in a hot sector, enjoy it, don't try to generalise to everybody or other sectors. Actually, the article is all about people that don't share our luck.
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  Not all corporate jobs are soulless, mind crushing Orwellian nightmares, and nothing prevents you from looking for a fulfilling job if you are unhappy with your present one, especially in our field.
  - MCRed 12y ago
    True, and I did spend some time looking. It's kinda sad, though, how our field seems to have devolved in the past 15 years. Startups today are much more corporate, more likely to be run by biz guys without appreciation for software, etc. Here's a good litmus test: If they have an open floor plan they clearly don't care about developers. If they BRAG about having an open floor plan-- and so many of them do-- they are terrible. Run away.
brandonmenc 12y ago
> it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age 20 years ago. Less than 6% of workers are working computer or math jobs - of any kind - which suggests that the overwhelming majority of people still have a difficult time when they're listed as "unemployed."
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  One common trend I have seen in my social circle is the lack of any employable skills. They may or may not have college degrees, but in general their degrees did not give them concrete job skills or they don't have a degree and no skilled trade. What would ideally happen is people learn a skilled trade if they are stuck on the job market. This training should also happen in high school.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Except the education system is bad at picking winners. What's in demand when you're in highschool is not what's in demand by the time you're entering the workforce.
    - rjsw 12y ago
      I remember finding that "Computer Programmer" wasn't listed as a possible job when we got careers advice as early teens.
      - arethuza 12y ago
        My 15 year old son got recommended the following options by a career guidance system his school uses: - Lawyer - Town planner - Royal Marine Officer I'd love to know the "logic" that led from his interests/skills to that selection! [NB Only one of these got the reaction "don't do that" from his mother and I].
    - shoover 12y ago
      How do they pick? Maybe they need help picking better. Seems like there's a lot of people around here interested in trends and intelligence that could help with that.
marcell 12y ago
It is great that you are able to do this, but not that your situation is not the one described in the article. The article discusses men who only qualify for low/no skill jobs paying $10-15/hr. That is markedly different from a tech startup cofounder who could get a software engineering job paying $100k+ with benefits.
- rtpg 12y ago
  yeah, a big problem with the whole "Don't need BigCo's job cuz I'm running a SV startup!" narrative is that it's really only accessible for people who already belonged to pretty privileged classes (exceptions exist, obviously.) A portion of the population does not get opportunities to develop these skills and were once allowed low-skilled jobs that paid "decently" but have now found themselves squeezed due to inflation and companies hoarding cash instead of spending it.
  - shutupalready 12y ago
    > companies hoarding cash instead of spending it I've heard this sentiment many times but I've wondered if there's an economic fallacy there. Would the economy be better off if lots of companies stopped hoarding cash and hired lots of new employees? Or would there be side-effects like inflation, or some effect of pulling out cash from whatever it was invested in, etc.? Serious question.
    - barry-cotter 12y ago
      > I've heard this sentiment many times but I've wondered if there's an economic fallacy there. There is, it's a confusion between money and capacity. That money is an option, the possibility of getting people to do things for you. Unused money is paper. > Would the economy be better off if lots of companies stopped hoarding cash and hired lots of new employees? The economy is an abstraction. It can't be better off. But if the companies that have the money had productive ways to spend it they would be doing so. The fact that there aren't that many productive ways to use the money is why the interest rate is so low. The interest rate is the cost of renting money.
tluyben2 12y ago
I have never had 'a job' and had startups (and later mature companies) since I was 15 (I am 40 now). I am not sure what age you are, but you need to know this thing for sure if you are past, I think, around 30 as running a life like this can be very painful. There simply is a tiny chance of 'big success' while most just live in almost poverty the first 20-30 years of doing this. That's also why I think you are probably young and haven't seen that yet ; most give up and tell stories to their kids later about it. Not to squash your enthusiasm; just saying that 'control of my destiny' is mostly not true at all; you are being lived by actual constraints of life. If you get a mortgage, kids, spouse, investors etc these constraints can easily 'live' you instead of you controlling anything. I was lucky, but just saying to be careful in thinking this and keep tabs on the 'do I actually still like this' factor. A regular job, for most of my friends who started out with me, was a blessing.
- deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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- MCRed 12y ago
  I'm older than you. Have done this before, spent 6 years "unemployed" traveling the world before I "got a job" that turned out to be a terrible decision. Of course you don't have control over your destiny to the point of just wishing you had a million bucks... but I also now don't have a psychotic boss whose only experience has been in the military micromanaging software development and doing everything he can to "control" things without any understanding of software development.
  - tluyben2 12y ago
    Indeed that's a reason I do it as well and I applaud all for going that route ; I'm just saying that if you do it for that reason you might turn out in a smaller prison than actually having a boss. But if you are not greedy, don't care about materialistic things too much, know how to save money for a rainy day and have a family that supports that way of living, I wouldn't want it any other way.
LargeCompanies 12y ago
I've lived with a parent (it's a big house they'd alone otherwise here) for I guess too many years then I've should. Also I'm old and my g/f who is similar age of five years also lives with a parent. Though she is getting antsy and wants kids and she only has a few years left. I want a family too but have been holding off for that big moment when my team and I start generating money and or sell our work. Ugh will that happen I don't know but I need to get back into the workforce and do our startup on the side. This what I was doing for the last year and half until I lost yet another developer job because of my incessant need to startup. I've lost two jobs in the two and half years because my bosses found out about my startup or we become friendly and I talk about it a lot. Ugh I'm sorta feeling stuck professionally and tomorrow I start my 3rd incubator yet im unemployed. You might want to reconsider startup pursuits after your early to mid 30s.
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  I might be naive, but I don't see having to choose self-employment or salaried work as a all-or-nothing, no-going-back decision. You could easily secure a well paid job for a few years, and save enough to support working on a start-up or starting a consulting business. If things do not go as planned, I can see no problems in going back to being employed, since your skills won´t have withered in the meantime, and possibily learned new ones. It seems to me that the startup culture is seen sometimes as a "get rich quick" scheme, where the goal is to retire at 25. A normal career in most professions lasts 30/40 years...
- sumedh 12y ago
  > we become friendly and I talk about it a lot. Loose lips sink ships.
- MCRed 12y ago
  I'm in my 40s and have been working for and with startups since my early 20s. I'd rather scrape by doing what I love than make bank and hating my life. Of course, making bank and loving it would be the ideal. But its not like I think the odds are huge. One thing I am doing is building up my side businesses. Get enough side income going to live on and you can work for a startup at low risk. Not the case when you have a family, of course.
emodendroket 12y ago
I don't think the majority of the long-term unemployed are unemployed because they're working on tech startups.
- MCRed 12y ago
  I don't know the proportions at all, didn't mean to imply the majority were. However, it is a trend that there are a lot more people becoming independant and making their money online via various ways (not all of which are startups, most of which are probably what would be called "lifestyle businesses" here, though I hate that term) and thus not counted on the "employment rolls".
  - emodendroket 12y ago
    Maybe, but most of those people aren't voluntarily doing that, are underpaid, and don't have any chance of making it big with what they're doing. Basically, all of the hardship of being independent without the rewards. (think of freelance journalists working for peanuts, or often putting stuff out for free for "exposure," for instance)
josephschmoe 12y ago
Actually, I think this is less common now than it was 20 years ago.
- MCRed 12y ago
  Well, 30 years ago there was no global internet full of knowledge and allowing collaboration-- I had to go to the college library. There was also no global internet allowing for an instant global market to be serviced from the middle of nowhere. If you started a business in podunk, your market was the podunk area. (For the most part, there was mail order and stuff, but that still had a higher barrier to entry than the internet does now.) So I think things have gotten easier and a lot more people are doing it. I'm interested in hearing why you think the opposite-- I bet you're observing a different trend than I am focusing on. (eg both trends can be true)
eeeeeeeeeeeee 12y ago
I don't think there are "quite a lot of people out there" like you, but I guess it depends on what "a lot" is. It's great what you're doing, but you are likely in the minority. Most people do not have the luxury or skills to do that.

brandonmenc 12y ago

> The places with the highest rates of male nonwork include parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas and Michigan. The areas of high unemployment in Arizona and New Mexico overlap almost exactly with the Indian reservations. A problem deserving its own analysis.

hessenwolf 12y ago
Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?
- db48x 12y ago
  The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    Perhaps you should look at the conditions that were imposed on these areas. Horrible government education and health care, relocation of individuals resulting in horrific suicide rates, boarding schools that beat students for keeping their culture and language, US government mishandling resources to the point the Dept of Interior was required to cut their internet connection multiple times. Never mind the oil and uranium problems. Its a culture problem, but not from the Native American side. The current generation suffered all these things and is trying to dig out of a hole. The next generation is better poised to grow as the culture is returning. Also, I would love for you to go to the Seminoles and read them your comment. I expect they would have a words. I would imagine these stats also don't cover pow-wow circuit youth very well, but that would take research. As a side note, this is the most ignorant and racist comment I have read on HN.
    - 12y ago

bruceb 12y ago

There are books on this phenomenon. Part of what they say is now men have access to their basic needs with out needing to work as much. Entertainment is abundant and relatively cheap and sex isn't tied to marriage. You can lounge around and be if not exactly satisfied, at least not terrible wanting for stuff. Of course these guys are screwed when it comes to retirement.

deleted 12y ago
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return0 12y ago
just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed.
- morgante 12y ago
  > just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed. Why? I'm pretty sure I'll be totally fine in retirement (predicted savings of $5M+).
  - nilkn 12y ago
    He's probably referring to the average American, and someone with a predicted savings in the mid seven figures is certainly not among that demographic.
  - VLM 12y ago
    Everyone can still be screwed at the same time you're OK. Unless you're implying you're just average median dude. Some experiments can be run in a spreadsheet. I assumed 40 years of work (optimistic) and google reports a median personal income of 32140/yr and average savings rate of 3.2%. Shadowstats reports an average inflation rate around 5%, thats sounds about right. The S+P 500 total return over the last half century has been 7% but it oscillates insanely from -5 to +17 percent per decade. I think it very unrealistic to assume the 50s or 90s will ever happen again, but whatever, I feel optimistic this morning. I modeled in a 1% annual decline in income, which is lower than actual but sounds vaguely realistic. My spreadsheet model shows an inflation adjusted retirement nest egg of $51K for joe 6 pack median middle class dude assuming its never dipped into for medical, educational, or unemployment issues for J6P or his kids or parents (in other words almost everyone will not have the money). I'm also assuming smooth economic growth (LOL) for best compounding results. It still affects you as most investment advisors assume 0% inflation, 10% rates of economic growth, etc. In a world of poverty for almost everyone, that sounds rather optimistic. Some other interesting experiments... 15% annual growth rate still only gets joe 6 pack to about 10% of your goal. Joe6Pack at 1% annual wage increase (which is totally unrealistic in era of long term decline) and 15% annual economic growth rate (LOL) and triple the median savings rate at 10% of gross income being saved for 40 years and no unemployment, medical issues, or educational costs for J6P or his parents or kids (LOL) is still only about 1/3 of your goal.

mbrameld 12y ago

Why do they exclude men in the military from their numbers?

deleted 12y ago
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maxerickson 12y ago
They aren't really market participants when it comes to the labor force.
- robotic 12y ago
  Why aren't they considered market participants?
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Military law punishes them for quitting. (Walking away from a civilian employment contract wouldn't normally result in criminal charges)
robotic 12y ago
I like in Columbus, GA, which is right next to Fort Benning, one of the largest Army bases in USA. If these soldiers were included in the stats, then our numbers would look better.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

>Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers Classic lump of labor fallacy.

bildung 12y ago
Classic lump of labor fallacy. That fallacy is far from proven, see e.g. http://econpapers.repec.org/article/tafrsocec/v_3a65_3ay_3a2007_3ai_3a3_3ap_3a279-291.htm http://econpapers.repec.org/article/tafrsocec/v_3a65_3ay_3a2...
- briandear 12y ago
  Here in France that fallacy is a clear as the baguette in the corner bakery.
geebee 12y ago
You've alerted us to the existence of a fallacy, but you make no effort to explain what the fallacy is or how the argument you are refuting has committed this fallacy. You did this in a previous discussion with me as well https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296 Of course, you are absolutely free to do this if you wish. But I did take the time to explain why I felt you had misdiagnosed the situation, and explained how the position I held was not undermined by the lump of labor fallacy. Just my own opinion, but if you're going to cite this fallacy, I do think you should be explain how you feel it relates to the current discussion and be prepared to engage in a debate about whether it is relevant.
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  Fair enough. The main reason why there is a lump of labor fallacy is that it rests on the fact that there is just a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. A fixed amount of jobs means that thers is only a fixed amount of goods and services people desire. But this is wrong because human wants and desires are unlimited. This is the basic condition in economics. So in theory there is an infinite amount of jobs to be done to cater to our infinite wants. Now, there are structural reasons for why there isn't universal employment. These can range from government policies, to technological reasons. If people want multistoried houses, and builders can build them, they will have jobs but if the government has policies which block those houses, the builders will not have those jobs. Another thing people want is to travel into space, say a visit to alpha centauri. There may be tourism operator jobs who can do that but technology does not exist which can take us there. The main focus of government policies to promote and encourage job growth should be on building technology to promote new job creating industries, promoting skills growth to manage these industries, and removing or modifying policies which hinder job growth. If trade or immigration caused a loss of jobs, the 90s would have been a time of high unemployment. It wasn't because a new industry came up to generate jobs and other jobs were created to service those workers. The same goes for policies to shorten hours or promote early retirement.

ottocoder 12y ago

I know this isn't entirely on point but I couldn't help thinking of Mr. Jaggers replying to Pip's question "what will I do?" with "Be a gentleman, of course!" (Dickens reference) when I saw the title.

vidyesh 12y ago

There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came to concluding this topic. The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of every 100. The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older people end up creating more jobs. The increase in unemployment rate : Yes, this contradicts with the above mentioned increase in jobs point but this should also be a factor. This also is affected by people not-from US who work in US. The Shift in Generation : 14 years brings/builds a very different minded person and this person might have a different approach to living. The higher standard of living : This also is one of the reasons why older people are still working and won't leave their jobs as their value is appreciated, helps pay the debt and they could satisfy all their needs to live a life of luxury(?) and fulfil all their ambitions.

coob 12y ago
Middle East wars creating more disabled people.
- vidyesh 12y ago
  And the article very precisely says >(People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures.)
  - coob 12y ago
    Are veterans?

Doctor_Fegg 12y ago

"Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead" Surprised that "read HN" isn't listed as one of the "insteads". Which reminds me, I really ought to do some work.

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stdbrouw 12y ago
HN is not the place for contentless whining.
- NicoJuicy 12y ago
  It was perhaps written to long and you probably have a different opinion than mine. Noticing you are a Belgian ;) TLDR; To much people just strike against the current governement and unwillingness to work (longer) here in Belgium. Because you're a Belgian and probably have a personal opinion: Jean Luc Dehaene did 3 step-indexes and he was a hero. Now, they want to do 1 without the socialists and it's like Belgium is on fire. The strikers get 30 € / day and unions get 313 € / month for every unemployed person... Do you think that's normal/good? I'm not claiming "right" os good, nor do i claim "left" is good. A combination of both would be good, without the extremism! But most of all, i'd love to see some common sense in unions and some radical politicians.

mamurphy 12y ago

I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really makes people reexamine their decisions.

marktangotango 12y ago
At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life. All those plans and ambitions? You've had 40 years to act, if you haven't done something yet, chances are you're not going to. Its all down hill from there. Hopefully you've got a family you can put you're energy into. At least this was how i felt 40+, ymmv.
- 3pt14159 12y ago
  I'm not 40 yet, I'm 29, but I feel like I've only had 9 years to act so far and I have another 30-40. Look at how old Elon Musk is and he's finally hitting his stride. Still got time man.
  - will_work4tears 12y ago
    He's 43, but your comment makes it sound you think he's older. I'm not sure he's a great example. He has inertia and a lot of money made from when he was much younger. Take an average person at that age, middle class income, family, etc, and see if they can accomplish life changing goals that they just started chasing. I'm not going to agree with the poster above that claimed that "At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to with your life." but I think as a generalization it's probably closer to truth than feels comfortable (I'm 37).
- philbarr 12y ago
  How depressing! I'm 37 and still feel I've got loads to learn and try out. Although I note that many of my peers are planning their escape routes to retirement. If I try to create a startup I'll be doing it on my own.
- 12y ago

hessenwolf 12y ago

That's an awesome graph. I mean, we could say some things like that the thickness of the gray bit is not so clear, or that it might be better if smoothed, perhaps the legend would be better elsewhere than in the coloured areas, but... it is still a totally expressive and elegant graphic.

aragot 12y ago
Yes it made me realize the rise of retirement-aged persons who don't retire. "Can't" retire? What a shift, in only 14 years!
- hessenwolf 12y ago
  I did a lot of work a while back doing longevity projections, i.e., stochastic models of the rate of change of mortality rates at different ages as time goes by. It is a bit of a trend that pension funds might choose to offset their risk by entering into longevity swaps, which work like interest rate swaps, swapping floating payments for fixed payments. Anyway, I attended a few conferences on aging, and all that fun. One thing that stuck out was that, in Germany at least, the ratio of workers to retirees of 4:1 will be more like 2:1 when I reach the current age of retirement. Another is that you need to consider years of abled life. A last is that I will never retire, and probably you won't either. Note that, in Bismarck's time, life expectancy was about 55: One persistent myth about the German program is that it adopted age 65 as the standard retirement age because that was Bismarck's age. This myth is important because Germany was one of the models America looked to in designing its own Social Security plan; and the myth is that America adopted age 65 as the age for retirement benefits because this was the age adopted by Germany when they created their program. In fact, Germany initially set age 70 as the retirement age (and Bismarck himself was 74 at the time) and it was not until 27 years later (in 1916) that the age was lowered to 65. By that time, Bismarck had been dead for 18 years.
  - saalweachter 12y ago
    Another myth is that the designers of Social Security in the US did not expect lifespans to increase over time; we are actually a little below target right now on expected lifespans.

blueskin_ 12y ago

De-paywalled: https://archive.today/nOnpV https://archive.today/nOnpV

cJ0th 12y ago

> To the extent that rising nonwork reflects more men graduating from school, that’s good news. Male high school graduation rates have risen 5 percentage points since 2000, and people with more education earn more and are less likely to be disabled later in life. I am not positive this computes. People with more education might earn more now but that doesn't mean that their wages or the amount of jobs in their domains won't go down when more people have a degree.

deleted 12y ago

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ttty 12y ago

>When more older people are working, they are earning money that they will then spend in ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example. But... older people earn 2-3 times more than a younger one (at, least in Portugal). So for each old people there could be 2-3 younger working. So if you lay off 100 old people you can get ~2500 younger people working. Of course, I doubt that the productivity will be lower per person, but here you are paid by how old are you (not, experience) * what you know

mkingston 12y ago

(A little facetiously, but..) Perhaps this is just the decrease of work required that was historically expected by economists, being applied unevenly. Of course there's nothing in the article to suggest many of these people are happy.

blazespin 12y ago

The problem is there is a multiplier affect from technology today that causes unemployment. The average IQ required to be economically relevant is increasing each year.

zo1 12y ago
Do you have any alternatives to what we seem to be doing at the moment? Namely, propping those individuals up from life-failure by state aide programs funded by people that are able to sustain themselves and supposedly others.
- marvin 12y ago
  I would say that this is actually a good solution. It's lopsided today since we don't officially acknowledge that this is what we're doing, but if the trend continues, you and I will also eventually be hit by this development (unless we're exceedingly lucky). Global wealth tax on large personal fortunes (say, 0.2-1.0% per annum of fortunes greater than $2MM) and even redistribution to everyone will make the solution more transparent and fair.
emodendroket 12y ago
It's not as though if everyone were a Harvard-educated brainiac it would suddenly be possible for everyone to have high-paying jobs.
- zanny 12y ago
  Well, one, being Harvard educated does not necessarily mean you are really a brainiac. Above the curve certainly, but you still have deviations from the mean in both directions. And no, even if everyone were a genius, there are limited funds allocated by geniuses to pay geniuses to be geniuses. But if everyone were brilliant and have complete information and comprehensive educations about everything, either we are already in post-scarcity singularity utopia or we are imminently going to get there because you have hundreds of millions of geniuses capable to work on it, and geniuses running the system capable of realizing that potential and working to make it happen. So either you are in a state where employment no longer matters, or your geniuses are smart enough to devote all their overflow resources to getting there, since they are all geniuses, they can all contribute to that end goal. We simultaneously have people who just do not have the skills or mental capabilities to contribute, and leadership that is too ignorant or selfish to acknowledge the benefits of investing in research and science, and thus neither is possible.

npx 12y ago

Are there any notable instances of unqualified founders beating the odds and starting a successful business?

deleted 12y ago
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wirefloss 12y ago

The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all. Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".

manuelriel 12y ago

None of this is new or surprising. It would be more interesting to apply this kind of visualization to industries, % or part-time jobs, freelance workers, etc.

ctdonath 12y ago

Where does minimum wage [objectively] fit in? If an employer can't pay someone what a job is worth, either the job doesn't get done or a machine is found to do it - leaving someone without the opportunity for a job. Yes, it may not be a "living wage", but no wage is even less desirable. I've started using Taco Bell's remote ordering app. The clerk, seeing how I'd ordered (not using his services), yesterday thanked me for making his job easier. Couldn't help thinking that rather than happy, he should be scared: with all the talk about pushing for $15/hr minimum wages, coupled with automation of order-taking, he's facing prospects of no job instead of an easy one. I know minimum wage is meant to help, but it only contributes to increased unemployment and inflation.

Malarkey73 12y ago
[Objectively] in countries where a minimum wage has been introduced at a higher rate than the US and is reviewed each year it has pushed up wages but had little effect on employment. e.g. see for instance this discussion http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-markets http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-m... Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern for worker is nauseating. If workers are having to top up wages with food stamps and government aid then the business, management, and shareholders rather than the worker are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer. And if you let companies lower wages to compete then the bad employers drive out the good. Far better to make them compete on the product or service not how badly they are willing to treat people.
- jongraehl 12y ago
  1. min-wage raises are so modest and so slowly phased-in (in the US) so to not produce smoking-gun employment drops, and employers prepare in advance for them, so sloppy underpowered studies don't show any large effect. marginal effects are small and so you need a powerful study. 2. do you want people who receive food stamps etc. and aren't hireable at $8/hr to have any legal on-the-books employment options or not? either way they're getting the food stamps. 3. I personally would rather see more Costcos+Trader Joes than Wal-marts+McDonalds, so i want to believe your 'bad employers winning' unless we force higher pay, but presumably people won't work for bad employers, so i don't see where your forecast is coming from. anyway it seems a little cargo-cult. you can't just start paying $20/hr instead of $8 and suddenly beat Costco.

JumpCrisscross 12y ago

The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of This American Life [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersection of these trends, as documented by This American Life, lands us in the curious situation of state governments encouraging their unemployed to seek disability benefits (thereby shifting their burden onto the federal budget). In the short run, state unemployment and federal disability benefits have similar effects. Social stability is enhanced through buying off the poor. But long-term disability is not designed for the under-trained. Its means-testing paradigm discourages even the exploration of employment options which might jeopardise the applicant's disability status. Thus a one-way valve to dependency on the state's largesse. [1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/t...

hyperpape 12y ago
There is also an issue with disability benefits where they are structured with disincentives to work. The motivation to not pay disability to people who can work is understandable, but for people who can work some but whose disability hinders their ability to get a full-time job or one that's not highly paid, it's a disaster. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/07/aid-for-disabilities-should-look-more-like-the-eitc.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/07/aid... This is a point that's not fundamentally liberal or conservative. Both sides should be interested in improving programs that have gratuitous barriers to work.
- lstyls 12y ago
  Totally agree, it should be obvious no matter your politics that the way disability benefits are currently structured incentivize people to not work, and serve as a de facto welfare system. The problem is that it's going the be impossible to get an agreement on the solution. Conservatives would take this as an opportunity to slash disability benefits and walk away. Liberals would look toward new government programs.

joshuahedlund 12y ago

This related article, also dated today, was linked at the bottom, and is a longer read with more/different details and stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-va...

theorique 12y ago

This article describes the growth of disability benefits and the way they are dispensed: thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/09/how_to_be_mean_to_your_kids.html

jokoon 12y ago

I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life. "what they do instead" Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience, motivation and networking. I took anti depressants for 4 years but am not so unhealthy in term of mental health... I'm back at school again, for some equivalent degree, but on 1 year, I have an internship starting wednesday, I really hope it will hook me to some job opportunities. If I don't get the degree nor a job, well I could really try to start some crowdfunded game project or social network, but I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers. Maybe I'm really incompetent.

the_real_bto 12y ago
I'm really sorry to hear about your struggles. One wonderful thing about software development, is that credentials and pedigree are not required. If you can make software, you can get a job. Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs. I've been writing software professionally for about 15 years or so. Before that I had flunked out of an electrical engineering program a couple times, and was waiting tables to get by. I considered myself a failure. There is always hope. Writing software isn't really about intelligence, although it probably helps. It isn't really about knowing the "one right way to develop software." It is more about being willing to admit you are wrong. Learn from your mistakes. Also a good dose of stubbornness is needed to deal with tools that don't work properly. Sometimes the documentation will lie to you. It helps to not take the little failures too personally. Best of luck to you.
- jokoon 12y ago
  thanks :)
- humanrebar 12y ago
  > Even if you can't write software, there are lots of related jobs. I'm more than a little frustrated that the tech sector hasn't taken this to heart more. There's a lot of day-to-day work that we expect developers to do that anyone with good grades in high school or a liberal arts associates degree could do. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a low ratio of administrative assistants to developers considering how much developers are paid. Perhaps it would be better if developers were paid hourly or otherwise went home at 5 p.m. like normal professionals.

icantthinkofone 12y ago

One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town and never gets a reply. If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.

TheBeardKing 12y ago
Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?
- icantthinkofone 12y ago
  I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't gangbusters, but he could help us out with <grunt work that's piling up> if he's willing to work for the right price." My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a job with more responsibility. Am I missing something? How else are we going to get all these unemployed men retrained in another field, especially growing ones like tech?
    - john_b 12y ago
      If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance, 401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of the cost of retaining someone. If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these types of hires are lower. What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs (health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing the costs of such programs.

emodendroket 12y ago

I occasionally see the rise of the single-breadwinner family where a woman has a job celebrated as forward progress for gender equality or something, but that's misguided. Frankly, a lot of men are just unable to work and then their families are forced to subsist on the woman's job, which still pays, on average, less. Newspapers talk a lot about high-powered female executives with stay-at-home husbands and so on, but that's a small sliver, not somehow representative of the trend.

golemotron 12y ago
A more subtle point is that the incentive structure for men to work had has evaporated. In divorce (which is largely initiated by women), men stand to lose more in alimony and child support. The economics say that if you marry (and far more people decide not to do these days), you probably shouldn't be the sole breadwinner and you certainly shouldn't earn more than your wife. I know a number of couples where the man just doesn't work and is supported by his wife. I don't think it's a conscious choice, it's unconscious and based on incentive.
- emodendroket 12y ago
  Alimony isn't just magically awarded in every divorce case, you know.
  - golemotron 12y ago
    True, but child-support and the children go overwhelmingly to the mother.
    - scarecrowbob 12y ago
      I might be wrong, but something like 4% of divorce cases have custody determined by the court, so that's a decision made by fathers (I have custody of my kids, and had no problem getting it, FWIW).
      - 12y ago

wtbob 12y ago

> People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures. One of these is not like the other… Everyone in the military (at least, who's not also imprisoned) should count as fully-employed.

bachmeier 12y ago
I think the reason they excluded those in the military is to allow an apples-to-apples comparison through time. It could be argued that the large number of draftees through the early 1970's forced some otherwise nonemployed into employment.
- protomyth 12y ago
  I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known career path for many young males.
  - innguest 12y ago
    It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth. Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      So, excluding all government jobs would be appropriate? No police or fire in your numbers either?
      - innguest 12y ago
        The government owes $118 trillion total (adding unfunded liabilities). When it can balance its budget than maybe we can have this discussion. Otherwise, anyone can steal $18 trillion from the masses under the pretense of using it for the public good - when really all (yes, 100%) it does is pay debt interest according to the government's own report on how tax money is spent - and "create" several jobs for you as well. So no, those shouldn't count unless you want to keep on living on fantasy land, believe government's inflation numbers (and close your eyes when you go grocery shopping), and ignore the fact those government "jobs" do not make us more competitive to other countries. You don't win in the global economy by giving everyone jobs, but by allowing people to create real jobs that compete with other countries so that we as a population become wealthier.

ap22213 12y ago

As of 2011, there were 3.5M disabled veterans, of which 800K were receiving significant disability benefits. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff21.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_...

patja 12y ago

The article states that every month the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics asks all men who are not working and not receiving unemployment benefits what their situation is. How does this process work? Having been in this population, I know for certain nobody from the government has ever asked me for this information.

akgerber 12y ago
Not all of them, just a random sample of the population which includes some of them: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/ http://www.census.gov/acs/www/

deleted 12y ago

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randomname2 12y ago

"The decline of traditional pension plans and rising education levels, which are associated with less physically demanding jobs, may both help explain why the elderly are working longer." Nice spin there, NYT.

innguest 12y ago
Nice catch of the propaganda machine at work!