Posted on 10/07/2015 7:09:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If we're going to dig our way out of what lies ahead, we need people who can work hard and start/operate new businesses.
Simply put, job growth is not keeping pace with population growth--specifically, the growth of the labor force which is generally defined as the population between the ages of 18 and 64.
So what happens to the economy as millions of people never acquire the habits of hard work or lose them due to chronic joblessness?
Yesterday I presented data on not in the labor force, which is defined as "persons aged 16 years and older in the civilian noninstitutional population who are neither employed nor unemployed."
The federal government reckons about 95 million people are not in the labor force. But this doesn't necessarily tell us whether these people could take a job or not.
To get some sense of what this means, let's look at the U.S. population in basic terms. The U.S. Census reckons there are about 322 million residents of the U.S.
About 74 million are under the age of 18, and about 42 million are retired (i.e. receiving Social Security benefits) and almost 11 million receive Social Security disability benefits.
About 2.4 million people are in prison.
Roughly 1.4 million are in active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces.
That totals about 130 million people who aren't in the civilian labor force, with some caveats: workers can draw Social Security benefits and still earn a wages, for example.
That leaves about 192 million people as a base labor force. Out of this total, we need to subtract mentally disabled people who are not institutionalized or drawing Social Security disability benefits (unfortunately, many are homeless or in prison.)
We also need to subtract those who are earning money in the cash economy but not reporting their income--i.e. those who are employed but not showing up as employed in the data.
Then there are people who are raising children, home-schooling their children, etc. as fulltime work.
Others are providing care to elderly parents or relatives without compensation.
It is difficult to estimate the people who are performing work but not counted as employed because they're not being paid. According to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), about 146 million people have some kind of paid job in the U.S. This could be anything from a $100 million hedge fund manager to someone with $100/year in self-employed eBay-sales income.
Roughly 24 million are part time jobs, and 122 million are full-time jobs. (The numbers vary depending on which agency assembles the data.)
Our focus should be on the millions who are not working at unpaid positions at home or at paid positions. Those who fall out of the work force (or never join it in the first place) may lose (or never develop) the habits of hard work and cooperating with others that are necessary to be productive.
As correspondent Kevin K. recently noted, the earlier one acquires the habits of hard work, the more likely it is that those habits will last a lifetime:
"Just like kids that start smoking when they are young tend to keep smoking until they die, people that start working hard when they are young tend to work hard until they die. On the flip side, kids today that don't do any work when they are young and are told what to do every minute of their days are not wired to work hard or think outside the box, which is an essential part of making the kind of decisions necessary to run a business.
I've noticed that the people that work the hardest grew up working hard because they HAD to. The kids that got up early EVERY DAY to feed and water the livestock so it would not die (my cousins in Oregon) are different than the kids who fed and got water for their dog knowing that Mom would feed the dog if they forgot. The guy up late because he needed to turn off the water to 20 units and change the angle stops before he can change a leaking faucet in an apartment where people are moving in the next day is a different person that the guy who spends a year deciding on the new faucet for the wet bar in his "man cave".
Most people know that kids who spend years taking golf, tennis or swimming lessons are not only better than most people at those sports but are FAR more likely to continue to participate in those sports as adults.
What most people don't know is that kids who spend years learning how to cook, maintaining their own cars and performing volunteer work are not only better than most people at those activities, but are FAR more likely to continue to participate in those activities as adults."
We encourage studying hard and playing hard, but how many programs in our educational system give young people an opportunity to learn how to work hard, especially for themselves as entrepreneurs/ self-employed? All too often it's assumed that studying hard and playing hard teach people to work hard. That is not necessarily the case, as work requires another set of attributes and habits. Some of these overlap with study and athletics, but not all.
Personally, I would make hands-on entrepreneurship a required course from intermediate school on, taught solely by people who have started and operated enterprises. Rather than a teaching credential, the qualification would be limited to the instructor has launched and operated enterprises in the real world.
If we're going to dig our way out of what lies ahead, we need people who can work hard and start/operate new businesses. The two go together. Entrepreneurship is not for slackers or those who give up as soon as the going gets difficult. It takes good work habits to persevere and keep learning from others and from one's own mistakes.
Well it’s hard working Americans that keep the welfare system going.
Depression => WWII
Just look at Greece/France
Easy. We print more and more unbacked, fiat money, to support the government debt used to pay for bread and circuses
It is why the Federal Reserve, and our socialized, centrally-planned currency are the foundation of left/progressive government. You can't have an massive welfare state without it.
Interesting read.
We hear how kids in school are coddled nowadays, with everything from banning “dangerous” games such as dodgeball, to teachers not being allowed to give a failing grade to a student, to emphasis on self esteem.
We hear how some kids sports play the games but don’t keep score, so as not to hurt the self esteem of the losing team.
We hear how some kids sports give a trophy to everyone for participating, and don’t give awards to those who actually achieved something. Again, this is done to allegedly not hurt the feelings or self esteem of those who didn’t qualify based on merit for an honor.
Kids are coddled in different ways, and then, are completely shocked when they go to work, and find a boss who expects them to do actual work in a manner in which instructed, expects them to show up on time for work, expects them to do messy or less desirable tasks which are part of the job, and expects them to do the work and not bitch about it.
I've become a Luddite. Maybe the solution is LESS efficiency in providing for what people need and going back to communities where most often women raise children and provide a home environment and men provide for their needs and protect them. If there is an excess of fighting age men, use them to build pyramids or walls or draft them or anything to keep them productive and necessary.
How's that for an outlier view?
Being unemployed for the last five months, I started my own small business, (not making much money on it, yet) not enough to pay the bills...
I took a "gig" job a few weeks ago for a week. I worked 58 hours, one day for 17 hours...I never heard of a "gig" job before..
It was very hard work, but I did it...
Definitely made me re-evaluate my small business model and job search to get back in the work force...
Bottom line is I believe most americans if given the chance will respond to the chance to work again...rather sit on their butts...
Stop horrifying the poor fascists. They are under enough stress lately, with Hillary mired in scandal and Jeb stuck at 4%. :)
I have been a semi-Luddite for some time. The world needs ditch diggers too.
Best of luck to you on the small business.
Been there before and went back to being an employee - and that was in far better economic times.
I know it ain’t easy...
Which is an absolute consequence of
Foreigners are brought into the country to replace them.
H1B1. If this wasn’t saving money and getting the same or better quality worker, companies wouldn’t be doing it.
I’ve had business owners tell me one “Mexican” (their description of any Hispanic) will do the work of four blacks. Illegals are here to replace the low education laborers who are now at 50% unemployment in the major cities. But they keep voting for Democrats regardless...
We become what Russia became during the Stalin/Marxist years, a nation of gimmedats unable to do even the simplest tasks and unwilling to care about their own future which they saw as dark and unsalvageable.
We go in the toilet. My friend is 56 and works on a concrete crew. The others are older than him. They are down to 3 people and can’t find or get anyone to work.
We have almost been destroyed. We are told by politicians we need the illegal immigrant labor because Americans won’t do that work. At the same time the politicians have been training Americans not to work for the past 50 years.
I wondered (worried?) about how to instill a strong work ethic in our kids when there isn’t much “real work” apart from chores in their lives. I recently received confirmation that the older boys get it. Our oldest was promoted to shift manager at a restaurant at the age of 15. His quieter 14 year old brother works at the same place. The 14 yr old vented to me after work about how frustrating it is to work with lazy people. Rarely does this boy get worked up, but he was on a roll about how he can’t stand lazy people.
When they were little we pulled them out of youth sports for a few years because they were so far from aggressive that we knew they were developing bad wrestling habits. Now-they are hard working, aggressive and strong athletes. I can’t believe how my laid back 9th grader plays football. He moves fast and hits hard! I had feared for years they might be soft and lazy young men. Thankfully, that is not so.
All of this took years of effort from my husband, taking them along to job sites where they did the low skill dirty work for a small payment (big to a ten year old, though!). I also pointed out over and over that we are created for work-God gave Adam work in Eden before the fall. Work is not punishment.
Kudos to you for raising such fine young men. If more did what you have done, the whole society would be better off.
Our daughter is a college freshman. She feels like the “toughest kid in pre-school” because her classmates seem so coddled.
Even though her brothers have emphasized that she is the wimp in the family ;-) ... she has had real jobs, can sort of take care of her own truck, and would come up with ideas for free time other than shopping and watching TV.
The other kids so far seem like cast-aways without their folks scheduling all their activities, paying their way and monitoring every interaction.
They scare me.
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