Posted on 07/11/2010 7:30:59 AM PDT by IbJensen
How many Americans will never work again? Perhaps a lot. A close look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey raises some alarming questions about the prospects of significant parts of the American population.
Thirteen percent of Americans twenty-five years and over without a high school diploma were unemployed in June (down from a peak of 17.9 percent in February, but much of that decline was due to a fall in the labor force participation rate from 62.4 percent in February to 61.4 percent in June). Ten percent of workers with only a high school diploma, were unemployed in June. Workers with a Bachelor’s degree, by contrast, had an unemployment rate of only 4.5 percent that month.
For African Americans over twenty years of age, the official unemployment rate in June stood at 17 percent. Most striking, only 58 percent of African-American men over twenty are employed, compared to 67.7 percent in 2000. For white Americans over twenty, the employment-population ratio fell from 64.9 percent in 2002 to 60.2 percent in 2009, a far smaller decline. There is almost no decline for Hispanics; the employment-population ratio stayed around 68 percent between 2000 and 2009.
The data suggest that black men with a high school education or less are dropping through the cracks in the economy. Adjusting for the decline in the employment-population ratio, the true unemployment rate for African-American men probably stands close to 30 percent. That is a frightening number.
Another striking data point is the collapse of employment for labor-force entrants aged sixteen to nineteen years. Jobseekers of this age have a low educational level and seek unskilled positions. In 2000, 45 percent of this population was in the labor force, but by 2009 the level had dropped almost to 28.4 percent. While unskilled workers of all ages are having difficulty finding work, young unskilled workers are finding it even harder.
Why is this significant? Unemployment for African Americans and those with less education has always been higher than for others, but most were eventually employed. The economic crisis has only magnified the differences. That would be bad enough. As matters stand, many of these workers may never find a steady job again.
As of June, 6.4 million Americans were on unemployment for more than 27 weeks, and the average duration of unemployment doubled from sixteen weeks in early 2008 to 32 weeks in June. These figures are, for the workers we are discussing, only going to get worse. Americans without educational qualifications are suffering levels of unemployment on the scale of the Great Depression, and for them that Depression may never end.
The sectors of the economy in which workers with less educational attainment were likely to find employment will continue to shrink. Foremost among these is home construction, where recovery may be decades away. By some estimates the US faces a 40 percent oversupply of large lot family homes by 2020, as the great retirement wave of the Baby Boomers leaves empty nesters with larger homes than they require.
Another sector is state and municipal employment. A significant proportion of job losses during the next several years will include unskilled workers employed by local governments.
Why should the discrepancy between white college-educated workers and others be so great? The world economy has changed, permanently. America once enjoyed a monopoly as a destination for capital and labor. The world’s savings poured into America during the 1990s and 2000s, contributing among other things to the homebuilding boom that employed many of the unskilled.
The fall of communism in 1989 and the incorporation of many countries from what we used to call the Third World into the global economy have eroded that monopoly. It has sharply reduced the number of jobs in manufacturing, which now employs only 15 percent of the workforce, and no longer offer unskilled labor an entry-point into the labor force. Again, the end of the housing boom and the decline in public employment in the wake of the financial crisis have also closed off other sources of employment.
There are three ways the situation could evolve, and two of them are bad. The first is that the American underclass might expand drastically, with attendant social and political problems. The second is that we will revert to methods last used during the Great Depression, when the Civilian Conservation Corps employed a tenth of America’s young men, encouraging the growth of government as an employer, even though governments are bad at providing jobs and the economy cannot sustain such programs.
The third way is the restoration of an economic regime that promotes entrepreneurship. The employment situation will not improve until small businesses begin to hire. In America’s creative-destruction economy, jobs lost by big companies usually are lost forever; they are replaced by jobs created by startups. Startups created two-thirds of all new jobs in the U.S. during the past three decades. This is the only real hope for the unskilled — but small business remains dead in the water.
We simply don’t know whether the next wave of entrepreneurship—if we are able to launch it—will absorb the millions of young, less-educated men who seem lost to economic activity. I fear that something like Roosevelt’s CCC may be required, despite my conservative’s aversion to government spending. There is, after all, a good deal of infrastructure to be repaired.
A sizable segment of our youth have grown up without fathers or fathers of their own. They have been socially educated in the public schools to not respect parental moral standards, challenging particularly the authority of their fathers. Their respect for their parents, particularly their fathers, is less than that of previous generations. The public schools have also taught them to conduct themselves as they like, that moral expectations are situation determined, and that no matter what they do or how well they do, they need to think of themselves as good people. Their parents have indulged their wishes as they were growing up and the public school has taught them to not be critical of themselves or their efforts. They have been taught that religion is ephemeral, having little to do with substantive moral issues or the moral foundation of our culture, but that it concerns an extension of feelings, in that God wishes only good for humankind, and that if they feel good about themselves, they are sufficiently spiritual and have God in their hearts.
They lack a sense of purpose and are generally not that interested in hard work or the pursuit of a difficult future. They lack a broad knowledge of the world or history. Further, their judgment is generally faulty when it comes to the management of their lives or their money. They contribute to the costs of social dysfunction in the form of social services and prison space. Unfortunately, they also are the future, in that the proportion of such youth in our population will likely increase.
Government programs will not help at all, but merely exacerbate the problem. An improving economy would somewhat mitigate the problems of absorbing this population into the productive society, though not much. The underlying ideas that have resulted in our present cultural trends need to be re-examined. Children who never knew their fathers, thanks to their welfare mothers, will some day, as realization sets in begin to hate the welfare pig they have called mother!
It is obvious that the Federal Government's intention is to create a permanent segment of the population to be on the "dole," much like the UK has. This will solidify the government's power over a huge portion of the economy.
Then there are those who have gone into the virtual Galt’s Gulch.
The state is the Father, the public housing builder, the food provider, the health care provider, the provider of professional state security....
“I fear that something like Roosevelt’s CCC may be required...”
....a lot smaller percentage of young men today could or would work like that...especially minority men.
The smart producers will be squirreling away money, assets into venues not reachable by government and they will eventually go 'underground' and join the rest of the throng asking for 'their fare share'. Collapse is certain and all that will be left is a fourth world country - the way Obama wants it to be.
With collapse comes genocide. Count on it.
As illegals continue to infiltrate our labor pool, they will continue to take jobs away from others with no education.
Further, black society as a whole, bears much responsibility for the high unemployment rate.
I commented some time ago about our own Mom and Pop company. We decided to add a part time apprentice to our payroll this summer, and the search for candidates began.
Overall, I was frustrated by the attire, attitude, lack of any sort of basic mathematical ability, and work ethic of prospective candidates of all races who applied, but more so, of those who were black.
Many showed up with “pants on the ground”, untied shoes, political messages on their shirts, etc. This is not to say it was “all blacks” who came to the interview this way, but many.
On the other hand, we had one white candidate who wouldn’t even remove his earphone/plug from his ipod thing while being interviewed with my wife.
Further, upon realization that this job entailed doing manual labor, and ladders, crawlspaces, and actual hard work were involved, and the pay was only $15.00 an hour, the interest level dropped off even more dramatically.
We eventually hired a middle aged fella with a family to feed who lost his job in manufacturing. He has worked out great, and we anticipate he will be at journeyman pay scale in a couple of years.
So they synopsis: we DID try to hire youth. we DID offer fair wages. The problem was, no youths wanted to be hired. We got the idea that many were there for the job interview at the direction of their unemployment office, their parole officer, or their parents, and they themselves had no ambition to have a real job that entailed real work, that would provide them with real skills for the future in which to provide for a family.
It was a frustrating experience, but very enlightening.
It's nice here.
Why, of course, it happens in all the best places.....Chechnya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, et al. It won’t be any different here except that much more of the indigenous population is armed (for now).
Andrew Billingsley:
In 1890, 80 percent of black American households were headed by husbands and wives. That's just 25 years after the end of the Civil War.
In 1900, the percentage was mostly unchanged, and so it remained -- between the high 70s and the low 80s -- for 1910, 1920, 1930, for every decennial census report until 1970, when it was down to 64.
For the 2000 Census, the percentage of black families headed by married couples was 38. The only good news is that it was also 38 percent in 1990, suggesting that the trend may have stopped getting worse.
Chicken or Egg? Cause of Effect? It is a persistent cultural disease.
The Left-tards are using it to gain power over a powerless people to destroy this great nation.
I appologize for quoting from the Washington Compost
Gosh.
Good thing we’re sending our jobs and factories to a huge nuclear-armed communist nation with 4 times our population.
“There are three ways the situation could evolve, and two of them are bad. The first is that the American underclass might expand drastically, with attendant social and political problems. The second is that we will revert to methods last used during the Great Depression, when the Civilian Conservation Corps employed a tenth of America’s young men, encouraging the growth of government as an employer, even though governments are bad at providing jobs and the economy cannot sustain such programs.”
This is by design, where do you think they will get the minions to create the “Service corp” greater than the military. They have to be educationally illiterate and easily manipulated, i.e. the proletariat.
The third way is the restoration of an economic regime that promotes entrepreneurship. The employment situation will not improve until small businesses begin to hire. In America’s creative-destruction economy, jobs lost by big companies usually are lost forever; they are replaced by jobs created by startups. Startups created two-thirds of all new jobs in the U.S. during the past three decades.
Low wage / low skill service sector jobs won't revitalize an economy that undermines its own wealth creating industries with "free trade".
There are no eternal consequences for our behavior or life choices. We are ALL gods in our own right. There is no right or wrong if we decide it is so. It is what ever we chose to define it as such. (The evolution/origin of Pond Scum.)
This is why this once great country is doomed. The character and fiber of it's population is no longer dignified or proud. It's only purpose is to exist and take what ever it can, for itself, while it remains here in this reality. It's Hedonism, Nihilism and Paganism all rolled into one.
Honor and Patriotism only exists in a small few, from the older generations. The youth have completely abandoned, discarded and have rejected any possible recovery to the only ideal and moral philosophy that will turn this around.
Sad but true........Tragic, is best description.
“Honor and Patriotism only exists in a small few, from the older generations. “
-
Yet those same few, are among the most tenacious adherents to the bone-headed destructive trade policies which are destroying America’s industrial might.
A very good article, thanks.
The author skips over an important factor - that we’re now in the 2nd and 3rd generation of some Americans who grew up in families where there has never been a breadwinner. Hard for a kid to rise above that when the prevalent role models have been those expert in milking the welfare system.
Which is why I think the public works concept deserves consideration, even as a big fan of less government. Seems better to pay people to do needed work than to pay them to not work.
do you mean aka Margaret Sanger? thanks
melissa
THIS is exactly what Obama wants!
And one reads the liberal websites and listens to the progressives...these very things you have rightly pointed out are blamed on capitalism. You have identified the falsehood in their propaganda.
It is not the pride of a capitalist,to exist and take what ever it can, for itself, while it remains here in this reality, although this is what they would have one believe.
This is what they believe capitalism has bred. When in fact it is their own philosophy that has created the greed, the jealousy, the lack of pride of self, and the ability to have work for its own reward.
There are now a few generations of Americans that grew up watching their parents and grandparents sitting around receiving “benefits” and not holding a steady job. They are now “entitled” to the benefits and know that they will never have to work unless they want to escape the rather poor, lazy life. Unfortunately, too many are inclined to settle for living poorly without exerting any effort in life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.