Work's for Squares

Barron's ^ | August 30, 2014 | Gene Epstein

[reaganaut1]

The job market has made a comeback over the past year, but the American labor force hasn't, and the prospects don't look good. Work seems to be on the wane in the U.S., with worrisome consequences for economic growth.

While the unemployment rate slipped to 6.1% in June -- its lowest level in six years -- the percentage of adult American workers who are actually in the workforce is at its lowest level in 36 years, with no rebound in sight.

...

WHEN IT COMES TO the millions of people receiving Social Security disability income, however, it is fairly certain that virtually all of them are outside of the labor force.

The SSDI program "creates a very strong incentive against meaningfully participating in the formal labor market," says Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor David Autor, author of the November 2011 study, "The Unsustainable Rise of the Disability Rolls in the United States."

The reason is simple: If you take a job, you run the risk of being terminated from the program and losing the benefits.

Not that those benefits are especially generous. In 2013, the average payout per recipient was $1,146 per month. But recipients also get full Medicare coverage. According to Autor's calculations, the average value of that health-care benefit is the equivalent of purchasing a lifetime annuity for $275,000. When you bear in mind that SSDI income is steady and indexed to inflation, and that it's possible to supplement it with under-the-table money, it might not be surprising that the number of recipients has soared over the past few decades. The current cost of the system, according to Autor's calculation, exceeds $1,500 a year per U.S. household.

[reaganaut1]

Later in the article cites CBO estimates that Obamacare will cost 2 million jobs by 2017 and notes that economist Casey Mulligan thinks the real number is 4 million jobs.

[BlueNgold]

And I am somehow removed of the earlier article of the British benefits m look of two with too much time on get hands who is now wanted as a jihadist...

Correlation between government benefit slackers and destructive political ideology?
Maybe.

Causation yet to be proven.

[Blue Collar Christian]

“The SSDI program (how about ANY social program) “creates a very strong incentive against meaningfully participating in the formal labor market,” says Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor David Autor”

Maybe now that a prestigious member of academia in Massachusetts has said what has been blatantly obvious to all but liberals, it will be “true”?

[Iron Munro]

the percentage of adult American workers who are actually in the workforce is at its lowest level in 36 years, with no rebound in sight.

This is the statement that puts the lie to the Bulls**t claims of lower unemployment rates and an economic rebound of any kind.

We are in a deep economic depression only slightly disguised by the obscene rise in stock prices attributable to the non-stop printing of fiat money by the Fed.

Obama is inentionally digging us in deeper every minute, hour, day and year with his economy killing regulations and record deficit spending, most of which disappears instantly into the pockets of his cronies and low-info democrat voters.

[Arm_Bears]

While the unemployment rate slipped to 6.1% in June -- its lowest level in six years -- the percentage of adult American workers who are actually in the workforce is at its lowest level in 36 years, with no rebound in sight.

Contradictions like this, in the same sentence, are why I allowed my Barron's subscription to lapse; and why I stopped taking seriously anything they printed.

[vpintheak]

I just can understand how anyone can say it’s 6.1% with a straight face and believe it. There are so many welfare bums not working it’s more like 30%