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The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind
The New York Times ^ | December 11, 2014 | Binyamin Appelbaum

Posted on 12/11/2014 3:45:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.

Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet.

“I’d work for them but they’re only willing to pay $10 an hour,” he said, pointing at a Chick-fil-A that probably pays most of its workers less than that. “I’m 49 with two kids — $10 just isn’t going to cut it.”

Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list....

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: depression; employment; freakstate; ibew; obama; obamaconomy; obamalaise; obamalegacy; obamanomics; outofwork; recession; tensofmillions; unemployment; unionthugs; whiteymustpay
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To: Age of Reason

Amen.


41 posted on 12/11/2014 6:22:23 PM PST by mylife
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To: mylife

Mr. Walsh... If you are an experienced licensed electrician there is NO REASON you should have been sitting on your duff for 4 long years just waiting for the union to call. Methinks Mr Walsh has had a nice long vacation on Obamunemployment. I think there’s something Mr. Walsh just doesn’t want to tell us. I have been broke, lost my job, lost my house but I didn’t sit around for 4 years waiting for someone to call me on the phone and offer a job. I hit the pavement and called everyone I knew looking for work.


42 posted on 12/11/2014 7:43:25 PM PST by Organic Panic
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To: Organic Panic

Her is living of Mommas inheritance and his wifey.

Thems the facts.


43 posted on 12/11/2014 7:50:02 PM PST by mylife
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ain’t globalism and foreign invasion fun!


44 posted on 12/11/2014 8:11:33 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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Comment #45 Removed by Moderator

Comment #46 Removed by Moderator

To: 2ndDivisionVet

I am shocked this article appeared in the NY Times. I would of expected some Jezebel Feminist writer celebrating how the White Male Patriarchy has been smashed.


47 posted on 12/12/2014 8:46:53 AM PST by C19fan
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To: Organic Panic; Abundy; Albion Wilde; AlwaysFree; AnnaSASsyFR; bayliving; BFM; Bigg Red; ...
My friend is an IBEW electrician, and he doesn't get much electrical work nowadays, so in the past couple of years, he did side jobs, drove a truck and now he's driving people around for Uber. So, I'm sure that if Mr. Layabout Walsh took the initiative, he could make some money.

$10 is better than $0.

Maryland "Freak State" PING!

48 posted on 12/12/2014 1:00:08 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (The mods stole my tagline.)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

But instead he just sits year after year in the union hall waiting for his number to be called.

***
And votes DemocRAT, I am sure.


49 posted on 12/13/2014 6:50:42 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: Ocoeeman

A guy this dumb should not be allowed around electricity.

***
Excellent point!


50 posted on 12/13/2014 6:51:41 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: Olog-hai

Which is why the NYSlimes picked him to interview.

***
Since it is the NYT, I wonder if “Frank Walsh” is actually a real human or a figment of the writer’s imagination.


51 posted on 12/13/2014 6:53:24 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: ExNewsExSpook

Here’s something that doesn’t add up about Walsh’s story.

***
As I commented to another poster, I am not convinced that our Frank Walsh is an actual person.


52 posted on 12/13/2014 6:59:11 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: theneanderthal

It really ticks me off when the electrons run through me rather than through the carefully designed circuits.

***
LOL!


53 posted on 12/13/2014 7:02:51 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

$10 is better than $0.

***
Yep!


54 posted on 12/13/2014 7:04:51 AM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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To: Bigg Red

I tend to agree; there are lots of union carpenters, plumbers, electricians from Maryland and northern Virginia who’ve made a lot of money in recent years working on federally-funded projects in the D.C. area. Heck, Annapolis is less than 20 miles from Fort Meade, and there’s always something under construction at the base. Beyond that, outgoing Maryland governor Martin O’Malley spent tax revenue as quickly as he could collect it, and virtually all of those projects were union jobs. If Walsh didn’t want to drive to D.C., there should have been plenty of opportunities in Baltimore and even Annapolis.

As others have observed, Mr. Walsh may be one of those guys who was sent back to the union hall “early” because he was incompetent, or had the work ethic of a sloth. The other option, as you observe, is that Walsh is another creation of the NYT; somewhere, Jayson Blair must be smiling.

Someone at National Review or the Weekly Standard ought to contact Walsh’s local in Annapolis and see what their unemployment rate has been over the last four years.


55 posted on 12/13/2014 2:27:33 PM PST by ExNewsExSpook
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To: mylife

60 years ago men would not have sat home and wondered at what point they would consider working.

I find this story pathetic.


56 posted on 12/13/2014 2:33:55 PM PST by Vision (Living in beauty)
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To: Vision

Agreed.


57 posted on 12/13/2014 3:07:35 PM PST by mylife
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To: ExNewsExSpook

Perhaps this story was appraised by the editor based on the Dan Rather scale of fake but accurate.


58 posted on 12/13/2014 4:08:38 PM PST by Bigg Red (Congress, do your duty and repo his pen and his phone.)
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