Posted on 05/12/2012 6:28:23 AM PDT by Kaslin
Walter Russell Mead writes on the disappearance of jobs for non-Baby Boomers:
An analysis of recent jobs figures at Investor.com reveals a disturbing development: the biggest beneficiaries from the economic recovery are Boomers, while everyone else is getting the shaft.
Since the Obama administration took office, there has been an epochal shift. Young workers have continued to lose jobs and incomes, while older workers have actually gained ground.
In fact, the Obama administration has seen a boom in the prospects of the 55+ crowd; their (I should say ‘our’) employment stands at a 42 year high. Net, there are 3.9 new jobs for people over 55 since the recession began in December 2007, but there are 8.1 million fewer jobs for the young folks since that time.
Jed Graham's IBD article features a chart that shows the employment-to-population ratio that applies for the following age groupings: Age 16-24, Age 25-55 and Age 55 and up:
In the chart, we see that those Age 55 and older would appear to have a near constant share of their population group having jobs.
Meanwhile, we see significant decreases in the employment share of the populations for both the Age 25-54 group and especially for the Age 16-24 group since December 2007, which marks the beginning of the so-called "Great Recession".
We thought that outcome was interesting enough to dig deeper into the data to see how the age distribution of the U.S. workforce has changed over this period of time.
And to make it really interesting, we've decided to go back to November 2006 to do it. Here's why:
The downside to our more detailed approach is that we're not going to be able to use the BLS' seasonally-adjusted data for these older five-year age groupings, because the BLS only reports the non-seasonally adjusted data it collects for them, which means that the data we'll be using won't match these more commonly reported values.
Still, because we'll be comparing the data for the same month (November) five years apart, our analysis should only differ in very minor respects from what might be achieved using seasonally-adjusted data, if it had been available.
We're going to do this in a three-part series of posts, with this post being the first. Our next stop: the change in the age distribution of the American workforce from November 2006 to November 2011!
an unfortunate truth... talk about chickens coming home to roost
I'm a great-grandpa. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14. Just give me back the money I put in and some employers contributed along the way, it's a tidy six figure sum. Just the principle. I won't live to see it, and I'm still working.
Now which of you wants to come out here and be responsible for $100,000,000.00 worth of projects a year, spend half or more of your days away from home every year, go days with sometimes three or four hours of sleep, work all hours or be on call, 24/7 until the job is done, away from family and friends, on location? Don't bother making long range plans, because that'll be when things happen. I haven't had a vacation nor a sick day in over 20 years. Benefits come out of pocket, because I'm a consultant.
(And then there are years when activity stops, and you live off your savings and what you can scratch together from odd jobs. Try wintering in North Dakota with no running water, skinning your own dinner, heating/cooking with wood, and using an outhouse.)
There are fewer than 10,000 people on the planet who do what I do for a living. I've paid my dues, adapted to sweeping technological changes, worked the sh*t jobs no one else could do or wanted to do, and I have earned (over more than three decades in this profession) the opportunity to keep doing it only so long as I do it well.
If you can keep up, you might be able to have the job you seem to think I have 'stolen' from you.
“So you can thank them, and those with their attitude, for the perception that your “degree” is worthless.”
And nothing to do with the professors who provide courses like ‘urban history’, or the ‘history of feminism.’
“Your local military recruiter not hiring?”
I’d love to serve, but I don’t reach the minimum requirements due to disability. If those were waived, great, but there’s not much I can do about it.
The unemployment/underemployment number for men between the ages of 25 and 50 is 1 in 5 (20%) if that isn't a depression, there never has been a depression.
The problem isn't that the older worker is harder working or more fit for the job. They simply have kept their jobs due to union and or regulatory reasons.
It is very simple math and logic.
Look at the charts. I assure you those who are in their thirties and forties are every bit as good and valuable as those over fifty fiver. But no one gets sued by thirty six year old white men who are released from work. Damn near every fifty-six year old woman beats a path to the nearest ambulance chaser to file an EEOC lawsuit the second someone six weeks younger is allowed to remain employed ahead of them.
“I don’t believe in getting into a rut or being afraid to reinvent myself. If you’ve decided to stay in a career rut for 12 years, you are the only person responsible for that CHOICE. Stop blaming everybody else for the choices you are making.”
I’ve worked almost as many jobs as my age. :)
The guy you are telling to flip a burger is paying your Welfare benefits.
When someone in their thirties today retires it will take until they are 127 years old to get the payments made into SSI back.
Think it is a viable system any more?
>>The young are going to be the caretakers of this nation soon.
When most of “the young” can’t even change the oil in their own car or control their own obesity? Hah!
I observe what used to be skid row and the 5-points area of Denver.
It reminds me of Logan’s Run. A Socialist Utopia built for brain dead house bees.
The only thing being “taken care of” there is the bidness of the sterile oligarchs running the hive - until its collapse.
+1
It’s here. If you where let go four years ago, like alot of people 30 -50 you would know that!
“I’m a great-grandpa. I have been paying into Social Security since I was 14. Just give me back the money I put in and some employers contributed along the way, it’s a tidy six figure sum.”
Stop taking it from my pocket and we have a deal.
“Now which of you wants to come out here and be responsible for $100,000,000.00 worth of projects a year, spend half or more of your days away from home every year, go days with sometimes three or four hours of sleep, work all hours or be on call, 24/7 until the job is done, away from family and friends, on location?”
Well, let’s see. I paid for my school by working 4 months out of the year out at a camp, every summer where I lived in a tent. 3 or 4 hours of sleep? Try getting up at 330 am and getting off the job at 9 or 10, eating, going back into your tent and trying to sleep enough, getting up and doing the same thing the next day.
Rain or shine, snow, even.
I’d wager you get paid substantially more than I did.
“I haven’t had a vacation nor a sick day in over 20 years.”
Sounds like heaven. I get slowdowns because they don’t have enough work to keep me going.
“Benefits come out of pocket, because I’m a consultant.”
Same here.
“Try wintering in North Dakota with no running water, skinning your own dinner, heating/cooking with wood, and using an outhouse.”
Sounds like life growing up. :)
“If you can keep up, you might be able to have the job you seem to think I have ‘stolen’ from you.”
I just want a shot, that’s all I ask. I’ve done very well for every employer and client that I’ve ever worked for but none of them have taken me on full time.
There’s so much that I can do, but it gets discouraging when you are relied upon so much as a volunteer, but no one is willing to hire you. I can do the work just fine and I’ve been paying my dues.
“When most of “the young” can’t even change the oil in their own car or control their own obesity? Hah!”
Can you cook a turkey dinner to feed 12?
>>And nothing to do with the professors who provide
>>courses like ‘urban history’, or the ‘history of feminism.’
Supply and Demand.
The YouPorn generation should consider the double entente meaning of ESAD.
If you do, you will. And that’s true about what goes into your eyes and mind as well as your mouth.
>>I’d love to serve
Then learn something of value like, say, about Aquaponics - and go learn to put it to use where there is a need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-MJRB18T_o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aquaponics
One of the hard lessons we all learn is life is not fair. You and I are on the same page when it comes down to tenure. It is not right that people can be in a position that no matter how bad a job they do, they can not be fired. This is what happens when we reward mediocrity and punish achievers and hard work. Why? Because it is easier to indoctrinate and control mediocrity.
You may find that we are all on the same page and age has nothing to do with it. Within time hopefully, after we are all thru pointing our fingers at each other, we will realize we all have the same enemy.
Your posts on this thread seem to say a lot of different things. I am trying to figure out if you were in school for 12 years, why are you waiting around for a full time job, why are you working odd jobs when if the teaching thing isn’t working out you are not looking to another career.
Jobs and careers are two different things...which is it?
If you had as many jobs as your age...well why is that? That kind of admission makes me wonder what is wrong with you besides your attitude?
“I though I’d child-proofed my house, but the kids kept getting back in...”
“The YouPorn generation should consider the double entente meaning of ESAD.”
Odd that, it’s not my generation that was the tune in turn on, drop out generation, that we still have to wade through that nonsense today.
And it’s not my generation that legalized abortion, but it is my generation that’s having to pay for it and keep shelling out to feed the system.
But I guess I study history so I know stuff that’s totally not useful. Like how things used to be when you were younger - how we used to have things like sound money.
Gluttony is no measure of success, Junior.
Joe I would re-check your math.
If you paid the max for the entire time and are now retired you would recieve the max pay out on SS. At the max pay out, a retiree of seventy years of age has received his entire input PLUS interest and is now lioving on the good will of the younger generations.
It is stricly math. It is based i=on the amount you paid in VS the amount you have taken out since your fiorst check.
Social Security is a massive Ponzi Scheme. It is weighted to the older generations and the bulge in boomers is part of the bankrupting process that was originally designed into the system.
It is was and was always intended to be a giant slush fund for vote buyimng to be used by the Democrat Party. It has been A very successful program for them.
“Your posts on this thread seem to say a lot of different things. I am trying to figure out if you were in school for 12 years”
I was in college when I turned 18, scrimped and saved to go. Finished three years of it off a combination of scholarships and working summers. I worked as a treeplanter, and then moved to a different job the next year as a delivery driver.
As much as I scrimped, I couldn’t afford to go and finish off my degree. So I went back to work. Found a bunch of different jobs, all part-time, all contract work, and kept saving up so that I could eventually go back to school, and finish up my last year.
The reason I’ve worked so many jobs is that I temped, and was always willing to do whatever it took. Rather then turn down work because it was something different, I’d take it on, do my best, work until the end of the contract, and not get renewed.
“why are you working odd jobs when if the teaching thing isn’t working out you are not looking to another career.”
It took me two years to get where I am now, where I am teaching part time. I worked really hard to get this job, and I am reluctant to start over again and go back to school, and do something completely different.
I have been applying for full time positions, but haven’t had my breakthrough yet.
Maybe you can afford to go back to school, but I can’t, I have to work and it was hard enough for me to make enough money to go the first time. If I go back and do something completely different, I’ll be 4 more years behind and still no further ahead.
“That kind of admission makes me wonder what is wrong with you besides your attitude?”
I have a hearing disability, and as a teacher, few are willing to hire a teacher with a hearing disability, irrespective of experience and qualifications. I have been told that I should teach deaf kids and deaf students, which isn’t very helpful when I am looking for positions to teach regular students.
I’m very good at what I do - my current employer is quite happy having hired me, I just want to get full time with them, but there hasn’t been a slot opened up yet. We did a major curriculum revision and I was helping train the full time teachers, which is part of why I was brought on in the first place.
But it’s all seniority - I’m the only teacher under 50.
Guess you can’t fix stupid! That rebellious spirit we have gets us into more trouble.
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