Posted on 05/20/2015 9:30:24 PM PDT by Red in Blue PA
At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking.
The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows.
A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553 working-age Americans conducted for Express Employment Professionals.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
“Something we can thank the one way ‘open’ markets of Most favored Nation Status for China and one way free trade deals that have decimated American industry.”
The number one driver to take US jobs offshore is our government. Within walking distance of the US border in Mexico you’ll find a row of American companies that can’t conduct business in the US but who sell all of their products there. One that particularly caught my eye was called American Plating. You can’t buy or even handle the chemicals they use daily inside the United States.
My company had to deal with a city, county, state and federal EPA. Any one of those inspectors can find an unidentified puddle on the floor and shut you down instantly. One of the inspectors (can’t recall which EPA)was a fresh out of college girl who had apparently never been in a big manufacturing plant. She was a raving paranoid who just KNEW we were doing something that would kill all the whales (or something) if she didn’t shut us down. She was terrifying. The company president scuttled around like a Japanese serving girl personally getting her the answers to her questions.
Then, there’s the IRS which is indistinguishable from the Mafia. They can swoop in, seize your bank accounts and make you sign a statement that you’re guilty of something and agree to pay the fine. (I’ve seen this happen.)
I hope things look up; what I would find almost as angering is the complete media blackout on what is happening to our former middle class. These minimum wage increase measures are attempts to deal with the reality that most jobs left in this country will be low-skill, low-wage work; they need a way to take those workers and put them into a class where they can contribute to the tax base (and Social Security). It is a wealth transfer from employer to government coffers, without leaving much in the workers’ pockets.
You can take an early SS retirement at age 62. The decrease in monthly payout is 25%. You get 75% of what you'd get if you waited until normal retirement which is age 66 for most people within 10-15 years of that. I did this and am still glad I did it.
Doing the math for my own case, it turns out that the added 25% to full term monthly payout would take 12 years to equal that 75% payout I got between age 62 to 65 - no brainer - I took it.
Another item to consider if you have a 401K or retirement plan that won't pay out until you are retirement age, there are provisions within the law that will let you get at that money in some fashion (hardship) at age 55 or older.
Regardless, I wish you well in your job search.
Every graduating class is a lot of young Dem voters lost by Obama; now we have to import even more foreign students because young Americans see no pay-off to investing four years and tens of thousands of dollars in higher education. They see the student loan crisis in the news, and are reacting to it; as they age, they remember the foreclosure crisis (still going on) and avoid buying homes and having families as well (and again, the government’s remedy is to simply import prospective homeowners from abroad).
Anyone passing a schoolyard or playground can see the future of this country (not decades away, but NOW) - and it is Asian and Hispanic.
The us government provides capital to refugees, Citizens, not so much.
The worst part is that it isn’t better skills that keep companies looking to younger workers; it is the fact that they don’t have the same financial pressures as older workers with mortgages & children. Companies don’t have to deal with family plans for insurance or absenteeism due to sick children if they hire young workers (and they don’t seem concerned with results - for years I had received customer satisfaction surveys from banks, and haven’t seen one in quite a while; they would receive 99% negative comments since they laid off their older American employees and replaced them with young inexperianced foreigners).
8.5 million Americans still don’t have jobs?
More like ten times that number—Check out the labor force participation rate.
I was out of work for quite awhile a few years back. Then I finally got a job only to lose it because 2 short years later bc they closed the department. I feel your pain.
Government regulations are killing more industries than anything else.
The industry I worked in is now almost completely gone and thousands lost their jobs - but foreigners now have those jobs. Environmental, tax, and labor laws drove them out of business and overseas where the same industries now make a much bigger environmental mess than we ever did. Nothing replaced those good jobs and the area is now a dying welfare disaster area with little work or hope.
Can you guess this happened in a very blue state (NY) which once was a powerhouse of industry and commerce but is now begging industry to come back so they can tax and regulate it to death again? Nobody is buying their political scam any more.
-— the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows. -—
But we have full employment, according to the government. So it’s all good.
Don’t worry, I am sure that by the third or fourth round of interviews they will have eliminated you from contention by virtue of not being a minority status candidate or they will have chosen to not hire for that position after all.
By any chance could you say you where part Cherokee? I know of a lawyer who used that to go from obscurity to Harvard and then to the US Senate. Of course she was a double minority as a Native American and a woman. As we know women only make up 51% of the population, so they are the minorities of course.
The point is that H1B1 regulations, EPA, IRS, OSHA, and the entire alphabet soup of local, state & Federal regulations, rules, procedures, taxes and enforcement have made opening up a business of any sort too costly of an enterprise. The time and investment in opening up a corner news stand is staggering. Try opening up a candy store or ice cream parlor without a wad of cash and a corporate lawyer.
At one point you might have simply failed and lost your investment and time. Today you not only could lose that, you could also lose your home, often less valuable than the investment you have in it, any savings and your very freedom by running afoul of a nonsense unknown law that a bureaucrat nitwit chooses to use in order to put the ‘screws to the man’. You, the private citizen being the man.
No as silly as you may find it it is a much more intelligent decision to do whatever work you can under the table and, rely on your spouses income and take the government largess they are willing to shoot you. It may be demoralizing, but after losing your livelihood, your sense of self and not being able to even get an interview it is often the best of a series of bad choices.
“...I’m sure that by the third or fourth round of interviews they will have eliminated you...for not being a minority...”
Well, that’s a comforting thought. LOL!
How about if I just claim to be “Native American”? After all, I was born here, and thus by definition, that should qualify me as a native. Then again, I am a male and my skin is white, so never mind.
I don’t recall posting to you jerk.
That said, if you have a genuine disability by all means you have the right to be comped for it. My beef is the endless extensions of unemployment to people that want to freeload off the system just because they can...
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