If This Is What “Recovery” Looks Like, I’d Hate to See “Hard Times”
Ever stopped to think about how many American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are not working today? You know, because they’re looking but can’t find work (e.g., formally unemployed), are not working by choice, or for whatever reason?
C’mon – take a guess. How many US males between 25 and 54 are not working today? One out of 20? One out of 15? Maybe one out of 12? After all, times are still kinda tough.
Nope. Try about one out of six.
Since January 2009, the fraction of the US male population in prime work years (ages 25-54) not working has set multiple all-time records, and is damn near setting another. And the trend has been steadily upward. Here’s how the data looks, expressed as a graph:
Yeah, Mr. President – that economic “recovery” is going great guns. We’ve really “turned the corner towards good times”, haven’t we?
To paraphrase Pyhrrus of Epirus: “Another such ‘recovery’ and we shall be utterly ruined.”
Category: Economy
This is not good. Pretending otherwise is just insane. Lying about it is even worse.
In know that companies are hiring, but you have to be willing to go where the work is. That could mean moving to Wyoming or Utah, and some people just don’t want to go.
On the othr hand, some people don’t actually want to work.
Yes, you’re right. It’s that and the mentality that young snowflakes are taught these days as well! I remember when I was in my late teens, back then I saw minimum wage jobs as a starting point or a stepping stone, ditto with when after I ETS’ed in the early nineties, I worked more than a few rotten jobs, but I built up my experience and obtained more skills. Today’s snowflakes are taught that the world owes them everything because they’re alive and breathing, and it seems that most of them wonder why employers don’t bang on their door while they’re playing Xbox and beg for them to come to work at their businesses. That, and most welfare programs HAND OUT more than one would make at at a starting level job, thus they think that work is below them!
I’m 30 years old and even I can see a difference. When I was in high school, my first job (full-time in the summer, weekends during the school year) was working maintenance at a local RV campground for $6.50 an hour. I was mostly a public-bathroom janitor, a trash collector, a landscaper, and a honey wagon operator (shit job–literally). I knew that I earned every dollar I made, because I actually worked my ass off for it. I didn’t do the minimum and then hide or take a two-hour lunch. If I finished my assigned tasks early, I grabbed some tools and started cutting brush back on the hiking trails on the mountain behind the campground, which had been neglected for a while. Me and the other two high school kids working there at the time got every last yard of those trails rehabbed, and cut a few new ones. The campers liked it, and the boss (my uncle) was happy with it. We didn’t make any extra money doing it, we just made sure that we were working while on the clock, and those trails were something we could take real pride in. That was a pretty valuable lesson for my later career. I was lucky enough to get hired at my current job a month before I graduated high school. It’s a competitive position I had to work my ass off for. The pay is not that great, but a whole lot better than what I was used to! The mantra for all new Firefighter-Is at that time was, “You’re lucky to be here!” Any time anybody bitched about anything, we were reminded that for each of us, there were 500 or more who would be happy to take our place. Another valuable lesson. Today, though, it seems like a lot of the new kids want to be firefighters because they think they can get paid to sit in front of the Goddamned XBox all day long. They want to sleep in (day starts at 6AM), they want to hang out in shorts till lunchtime (boots and pants… Read more »
Lowest workforce participation rate in nearly 40 years, inflation hovering around 6 percent rather than the “official” 3 percent, and an all-too-compliant media carrying the water for the administration.
Surprise!
I remember once seeing news clips of Dick[less] Gephardt telling crowds how awful and greed-filled the Reagan years were, but that’s the mantra that today’s mainstream snooze media preaches!