Posted on 07/06/2017 7:38:58 AM PDT by newgeezer
America doesn’t have a worker shortage; it has a work shortage. The unemployment rate is at a 15-year low, but only 55% of Americans adults 18 to 64 have full-time jobs. Nearly 95 million people have removed themselves entirely from the job market.
According to demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, the labor-force participation rate for men 25 to 54 is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression. The welfare state is largely to blame. More than a fifth of American men of prime working age are on Medicaid. According to the Census Bureau, nearly three-fifths of nonworking men receive federal disability benefits.
The good news is that the 1996 welfare reform taught us how to reduce government dependency and get idle Americans back to work. Attaching work requirements to social benefits like Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income would make what these pages have called “America’s growing labor shortage” a nonissue.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 41% of nondisabled adults on Medicaid do not have jobs. Thirteen million Americans 18 to 54 currently receive SSDI or SSI benefits. Conservatively, work requirements could add 25% of that population (3.3 million workers) back to the labor force. Work requirements for people on SNAP would increase the worker rolls by 1.9 million if only 10% who are not engaged in work rejoined.
There’s no question that insisting on work in exchange for social benefits would succeed in reducing dependency. We have the data: Within 10 years of the 1996 reform, the number of Americans in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program fell 60%. But no reform is permanent. Under President Obama, federal poverty programs ballooned.
A better long-term solution to the work shortage would be to eliminate all forms of public support except for those who are unable to work, and eliminate all poverty programs, since they have not reduced poverty since they were established in 1965. The money currently being spent on these programs should be redirected to job creation—preferably for private-sector jobs, but public-sector jobs will do in a pinch. A trillion-dollar federal infrastructure program, such as the one President Trump has said he will propose, could absorb a large number of the unemployed and underemployed.
There are other avenues to pursue. For young men who are not working, a mandatory two-year public-service requirement with an off-ramp for those who snag a job could motivate them to get off—and stay off—the couch.
Too many Americans who could be available to help fuel robust economic growth are instead sitting on the sidelines. It’s time to get them in the game. It’s time to solve our work shortage.
Mr. Cove is author of “Poor No More” and founder of America Works.
Surely this common sense article is too rational for the Wall Street Journal or the Fake News Media. Is this from the Onion?
People have a habit of using the government's language which is intended to obscure what happened. They did not removed themselves from the job market. They were removed. They lost their jobs, and didn't find another one.
Government statisticians take them out of the job market so they can show ever-improving unemployment numbers. The numbers are ever-improving because they mainly only count people who have jobs. You don't have a job, you're "out of the job market" and not counted. I can't wait until things have improved to the point that they start giving an honest count.
The double-whammy was leaving the border open. Over the last decade the biggest growth in employment was among people who weren’t supposed to be here. This includes illegal workers, and it includes H1B workers replacing techies who trained their replacements on their way to “leaving the job market”.
“There are other avenues to pursue.”
End all guest worker programs, including anything that could be re-purposed as one. This would incentivize the private sector to recruit and hire less ideal candidates, including the able-bodied disabled.
I hear you but, actually, you're forgetting the next step: They got discouraged and stopped looking.
The article is correct. They removed themselves from the job market. And unemployment is always understated because it doesn't count those who "involuntarily" left the job market.
The whole 95 million - out looking for work constantly, willing to work at anything to get a paycheck. I suspect not.
Yes and even for people who are still employed it drives down wages...
That’s good but how may of the able-bodied can’t pass a drug test? All they know in life is how to use a cell phone and how to be a pin cushion.
“Meanwhile, [Governor Scott] Walker (R, WI) has asked the Trump administration to allow Wisconsin to mandate drug screening for poor, childless adults who seek Medicaid, and to impose a time limit on such coverage unless recipients work. Wisconsin could be the first state to implement such requirements, but other states are expected to follow.”
Drug abuse needs to be a part of this equation, too.
https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_health_care_fight/wisconsin-medicaid-expansion-gop-health.php
Require public service including drafting them into the military.
Been a long time since the WSJ published something with which I agreed so wholeheartedly.
Banning discrimination against all men would definitely help.
I agree on getting rid of welfare, the other thing that must be gotten rid of is the minimum wage. If you get rid of that you won’t need any trillion dollar work program. You would be surprised how many jobs will suddenly be created.
July unemployment: men, 7.0; women: 6.5
Unemployment of men over 20 has gone down from 10% in 2009.
These statistics often give a very inaccurate picture of what’s going on out there. A good chunk of the 95 million Americans who are not in the work force are actually retirees, including many who were forced into retirement late in their careers.
So they’re likely not to be close to retirement age, but still jobless (as opposed to being “unemployed”.
I’m thinking of someone in the 55-62 age range who may have enough liquid assets to support him/her until Social Security eligibility. I’m even thinking of some folks who are independently wealthy and are out of the work force because they simply don’t need the income after they were laid off in the last few years.
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