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"There are zero states where the percentage of people employed has gone up since the recession"
"From 2007 to 2014, the employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds has declined in the United States by 3.5 percent, and no state reported employment gains during that time, according to data released by the Pew Charitable Trust"
I would guess that the number of people applying for SS-Disability is a large part of that 3.5%. Workers over 50 who were laid off and could not find work until their UE ran out. Disability became a out for them rather than taking a min. wage job.
A lot of jobs disappeared for good. Outsourced, automated, whatever. They are gone. We are going through a labor transformation at the same time the Great Recession hit.
Yessir- I believe that you are correct. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on this, despite the appalling lack of supporting documentation, references, and appropriate mathematical formulae, which of course makes your observations of potentially dubious merit, to say nothing about being yet another crime against logic.
This statistic makes perfect sense and the perverse attention given to employment rates, "job creation",etc., overlooks the obvious: this is a structural problem. The dirty little secret is that technology is a job destroyer and its intent and function is to eliminate as many human jobs and possible and replace them with automation. Today's employment rate statistics are meaningless because the jobs being created are minimum wage jobs without benefits, jobs without chance of advancement or improving one's lot or station in life, and without job security.
I cannot argue with @DiphcOracl 's assessment. While the ranks of computer type jobs expand these are just a small sector of the total labor pool. As we have seen in the auto industry, automation and robots have eliminated a large number of jobs. That is spreading to other industries as the technology expands.
This is a situation we have never seen before. In the eras past there were jobs that took over the dying ones. Blacksmiths went away but those same people were able to work in other and sometimes similar jobs. Today most jobs require additional education which means that when someone loses their job, retraining is needed which takes time and money. The only jobs anyone can slide into today are the ones mentioned, fast food or service jobs. Jobs with lesser wages and less hours to boot. Less benefits too.
How long can we go down this road before we reach a tipping point?
Thanks, gentlemen. I've felt this way for a long time now, and it's good to see that at least a few others see this also. What's more, I just do not believe that additional education is going to be the answer here. It will help. of course, but how many millions of jobs are out there just waiting for folks with a little more education? John, I think we are at the tipping point right now.
Perhaps the purpose of it all is the welfare of the species. What always mystifies me is that money/wealth/ownership takes over the purpose which would seem to mean that the welfare of the human species is not the purpose at all. (If that doesn't make sense to you; that's OK, I'm just frustrating aloud.)
We tend to believe that inorder for an individual purpose to exist and be worthwhile it must contribute to the wealth/money/ownership aspects of survival and maintain a payment system based on deemed value as determined by an under/overabundance of labor. Well, imagine a world where robots did everything, even improve on the current generation of robots. The purpose is still the welfare of species human. There is no reason, for example, if robots could farm enough food for everyone, that powerful elitists should make claim to the robot productivity and destroy or limit food to maintain the caste system just because the ex-laborers are now worthless to the elitist, not earning their share, and need to be starved. (Think of it like infinite projections or limits at infinity with closed form solutions - whatever wets the whistle.) Tis a puzzle and I am not clever enough to unpuzzle it.
Well, that's a bit of fantasy. I leave such matters to the young because they determine what it means to be human during their stay. I've never thought human to be a viable species in the long run. On the other hand I don't underestimate the young when it comes to finding purpose and transforming the human existance for good or for bad. Would the hunter/gatherer/farmer of yore have valued and prized the HFT of today?
Think about this - work is usually anti-creative and man is a species born to create. The future is brighter as drudge is eliminated even if the end state is unimaginable to current drudgers.
Comments
Regards,
Ted
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/19/there-are-zero-states-where-the-percentage-of-people-employed-has-gone-up-since-the-recession/
Regards- OJ
A lot of jobs disappeared for good. Outsourced, automated, whatever. They are gone. We are going through a labor transformation at the same time the Great Recession hit.
This is a situation we have never seen before. In the eras past there were jobs that took over the dying ones. Blacksmiths went away but those same people were able to work in other and sometimes similar jobs. Today most jobs require additional education which means that when someone loses their job, retraining is needed which takes time and money. The only jobs anyone can slide into today are the ones mentioned, fast food or service jobs. Jobs with lesser wages and less hours to boot. Less benefits too.
How long can we go down this road before we reach a tipping point?
We tend to believe that inorder for an individual purpose to exist and be worthwhile it must contribute to the wealth/money/ownership aspects of survival and maintain a payment system based on deemed value as determined by an under/overabundance of labor. Well, imagine a world where robots did everything, even improve on the current generation of robots. The purpose is still the welfare of species human. There is no reason, for example, if robots could farm enough food for everyone, that powerful elitists should make claim to the robot productivity and destroy or limit food to maintain the caste system just because the ex-laborers are now worthless to the elitist, not earning their share, and need to be starved. (Think of it like infinite projections or limits at infinity with closed form solutions - whatever wets the whistle.) Tis a puzzle and I am not clever enough to unpuzzle it.
Well, that's a bit of fantasy. I leave such matters to the young because they determine what it means to be human during their stay. I've never thought human to be a viable species in the long run. On the other hand I don't underestimate the young when it comes to finding purpose and transforming the human existance for good or for bad. Would the hunter/gatherer/farmer of yore have valued and prized the HFT of today?
Think about this - work is usually anti-creative and man is a species born to create. The future is brighter as drudge is eliminated even if the end state is unimaginable to current drudgers.