
The Long-Term Unemployed Are Doomed - sheri
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/11/long_term_unemployment_doom.html
======
tokenadult
I live in the part of the country that the article author recommends as a
place to go to find work if unemployed. The long-term unemployed persons I
know best came out of high school with very limited job skills (barely
literate or numerate) and have spent their free time while unemployed mostly
pursuing hobbies that do not further develop their job skills. (Some of the
saddest cases I know are people who had problems with alcohol or other drug
abuse in the early years of their working life.)

Many of those people would indeed be employable in St. Cloud, Minnesota or
Mankato, Minnesota in entry-level, manual-labor jobs, but unemployment
benefits have, till now, provided enough income to allow living independently
without having to go to work each day. I'll see what happens to the people I
know best, locally, when the "emergency" extensions of unemployment benefits
at long last cease. There are definitely employers in this frigidly cold state
that are still on the lookout for willing workers, and I wish well to everyone
seeking work. There are probably quite a few opportunities yet available to
the people who will look for them.

~~~
batbomb
Most of the cities are in North Dakota jobs are assuredly oil field related.
As such, in some sense they are an unemployment paradise if you don't have a
family, because it's low-skill, subsidized housing (and often food) work, and
easily pays 3 times what you would get at mcdonalds.

~~~
bsirkia
What do you think is keeping people from moving to North Dakota? I actually
don't totally know the answer, are the travel expenses just too high?

~~~
tokenadult
Historically, North Dakota hasn't been a fun place to live, and it has lost
population to other states during most of my lifetime. The oil boom is a new
phenomenon there, and the "cities" near the oil fields have few fun places at
which to spend the money earned by the oilfield workers. This may change over
time if the oil production and natural gas production is sustained, and
infrastructure development continues there. So an early comment of mine for
more details.

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072755](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5072755)

P.S. The cities in Minnesota mentioned in the article that was submitted to
open the thread are not particularly close to North Dakota and are not tied to
the petroleum economy. They are college towns and rather pleasant to live in.

~~~
batbomb
...and few women. People complain about Silicon Valley being low on women,
those people have never witnessed an oil boom.

I wouldn't be surprised if Minnesota's economy was experiencing at least
partial boom due to North Dakota in any case. You have tons of weekend
warriors who drive 6+ hours a day routinely that aren't afraid to drive 6
hours to civilization, and even though the oil fields have infrastructure,
they're still sourcing it from wherever they can get it.

------
bluedino
People need to move to where the work is. Maybe the government could offer a
tax break or stipend to get people to move (and somehow try not to let that
get abused), I'd be surprised if the transportation industry isn't lobbying
for it already.

For generations, people moved. To Oregon/California just because the east was
too crowded and didn't have much opportunity. To the midwest to work in the
tire, steel, and auto plants. To the south for the new auto and manufacturing
plants.

And now it will be to the plains for jobs in the construction and energy
industries.

How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't
afford not to? How long will they use the excuse "I'm upside down on my
mortgage?" when they aren't going to be right-side up anytime soon and aren't
working as it is?

Pack your shit up and move and send money back home to your family if you
don't want to bring them. The long-lasting unemployment benefits just keep
'workers' stuck where they are, and as a result it keeps their families and
future generations stuck in the same place.

~~~
gilrain
> How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't
> afford not to?

For this post, I will be a hypothetical long-term unemployed person.

Moving to even a low-cost area is going to be at least $1000 for deposit on an
apartment and utilities, plus the first month of rent. I'll also need
groceries and transportation or gas.

Keep in mind that my credit, assuming I even have any, is maxed out because I
have already been using it to supplement my living expenses and job hunt for
the past few years.

I can't afford to move, and that is not a fucking excuse.

~~~
talmand
As a frequent mover, it is interesting that people just say "move!" without
considering such things. If you don't have the capital to move, then it's
likely not going to happen. Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving
to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job.

~~~
DanBC
> Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to
> essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job.

Depends where you are.

The UK has a problem with migrant workers getting stuck - they come here for
work, don't get work, can't afford to go home, can't get help to get back home
because of legal complications.

~~~
talmand
You are correct, I'm speaking of the US. Although I guess it's fair to say we
have a touch of that with our immigrant friends here as well.

------
cantastoria
It would be interesting to see what the socioeconomic/educational attainment
breakdown of the long-term unemployed looks like (Link anyone?).

I think the assumption is that most of people in this group are unskilled
high-school drop outs but I wonder how many of them "have some college" or a
degree and are just unwilling to "lower themselves" to working on an oil
pipeline or any other kind of work associated with being blue collar. The
assumption that people will take any job they can get, at least in my
experience, is just plain wrong. For instance (I know this is just anecdotal)
but I know quite a few people in NYC who attended elite schools that are
perfectly happy to collect unemployment while they wait for a high prestige
job opening (e.g. "I'm waiting for the New Yorker to have a job opening"). The
thought that a government grant would get these people to go work in an oil
field in South Dakota is absurd most of them are horrified at the thought of
leaving Brooklyn. I was thinking of this article from Mike Rowe:

[http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-
questions/](http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/)

"Right now, in the manufacturing sector alone, 600,000 jobs are currently
available."

If that is indeed the case there is something else going on.

~~~
geogra4
At what wage? That's what I say to those claiming that hundreds of thousands
of jobs are unfilled in any sector, be it IT consulting firms clamoring for
h1-bs or agriculture firms looking for cheap fruit pickers.

~~~
nickff
If immigrants can survive on (and desire) the income provided by the jobs
which you deem to be 'low wage', why should Americans disdain and forgo the
positions?

Put another way, you seem to suggest that because people cannot find jobs they
want, they should be considered unemployable; Why is this true?

~~~
geogra4
I think it generally helps to follow the money. The big money is in big
business increasing the bottom line by lowering wages in the economy. They can
do that by increasing the labor pool enough so that there is a critical mass
of workers that will accept employment at a lower wage than the current market
prevailing wage. That is why the minimum wage, for example was legislated in
to action.

~~~
nickff
That is the commonly stated reason for the enactment of the minimum wage, the
so-called 'baptist's reason' (in the bootleggers and baptists paradigm [1]).
Historically the minimum wage has been used to discriminate against minorities
and other targeted groups by making their wages higher than their value to an
employer[2], this would be the so-called 'bootlegger's reason'.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists)
[2] [http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-
Williams/d...](http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-
Williams/dp/0070703787/ref=la_B001H6W1VW_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382102288&sr=1-5)

edit: if you follow the money on the bootleggers side, you will see that
unions and companies with high capitalization support increasing minimum
wages.

~~~
geogra4
Companies with high capitalization? What do you mean by that?

Some corporations support raising the minimum wage only in the sense that it
would bankrupt their competitors business models. (cf Costco vs Wal-Mart).
Although as someone in support of a higher minimum wage I don't see that
necessarily as a bad thing.

Unions are less than 7% of the private sector workforce and shrinking, their
influence has been quashed, for the most part ever since Reagan dismantled
PATCO in 81.

Economically, a minimum wage sets a price floor for labor. At higher levels it
also can induce demand by increasing the velocity of money through the bottom
rungs of the labor force. Especially since the poor spend a much higher % of
their income than the wealthy do.

And with respect to your [2], I counter with [0]. Minimum wage actually has
very little if any empirical affect on unemployment.

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Funnel_Graph_of_Estimated_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Funnel_Graph_of_Estimated_Minimum_Wage_Effects.jpg)

------
billyjobob
I'm from a country with a welfare state, where if you are unemployed the
government pay your rent and give you a small amount of money to buy food
until such time as you are employed again. Not understanding how the American
system works, I find this article confusing. It sounds like there is a time
limit on how long someone can claim unemployment benefit? So what happens
after this time runs out, they just get kicked out of their home and
starve/freeze to death? Even if you don't care about them on a human level,
that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime
levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people. Honestly it
sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel.

~~~
nsxwolf
There are other welfare support programs besides unemployment insurance.
They're just not all wrapped up in a neat bow by the central government.
There's housing and food assistance and other programs at the federal and
state levels, as well as charities, church food pantries, etc.

In reality, very few people end up on the streets to starve and freeze to
death.

~~~
lisper
That depends on what you mean by "not very many." Accurate numbers are hard to
come by, but as of the mid-2000's there were an estimated 750,000 homeless
people in the U.S. That number is almost certainly higher now.

Most of them manage to survive without starving or freezing because food and
shelter are sporadically available. But it certainly doesn't extend their life
span.

~~~
bluedino
A large amount of our homeless are mentally ill and live on the street by
choice. There are shelters in most places, and the 'smart' homeless people
hitchhike somewhere warm. It's a much easier time being homeless in California
than it is in Minnesota.

~~~
lisper
> A large amount of our homeless are mentally ill and live on the street by
> choice.

Yes, that's true (though "choice" is a little bit of a misleading term to
apply to a mentally ill person -- their "choice" is often between the street
and some mental institution which is not much different than a prison). But I
don't see what that has to do with the topic at hand.

> There are shelters in most places

It is an extremely rare shelter that is not already heavily oversubscribed,
especially when the weather turns nasty.

> the 'smart' homeless people hitchhike somewhere warm

That's true too. But the crop of folks who will be hitting the streets in the
next few years as a result of unemployment benefits coming to an end are
probably not very street-smart.

But your point is well taken: we will probably not be seeing dead bodies of
homeless people being hauled away by the truckload. But (I predict) we will be
seeing a lot more homeless people.

------
Ensorceled
This kind of skirts the problem. There are more unemployed than there are
jobs. There are _far_ more under-employed people working at McDonalds that
would like better jobs.

Those jobs don't exist. They just don't. The jobs are in China or they are
being done better by mechanical sorters at Amazon.

Even if we figure out a relocation plan, that solves a minor part of the
problem. Worse, those low skilled, high risk employees are now in another part
of the country, first to be laid off and with no social network once they are.

There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a
guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.

~~~
aggieben
> There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a
> guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.

I think that's a pretty narrow view. There are other possible alternatives,
like: new businesses opening; completely new industry forming that doesn't
require high skill levels from its workers. Given an individual situation, I
don't think it would be too difficult to imagine additional scenarios.

I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty the long-term unemployed are
facing, but I don't think it's constructive to throw up your hands and
despair, either.

~~~
Ensorceled
I can imagine that happening but it's seems silly to base policy on some
imaginary scenario where a new industry starts up that that needs literally
millions of lower skilled employees to function.

When was the last time that happened? Every current industry is shedding
employees. New industries are either small or require a high skill set.

------
kfcm
Ames, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Columbia, MO. NCAA Div I university.

Lincoln, NE. NCAA Div I university.

Iowa City, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Fargo, ND. NCAA Div I university.

Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Mankato, MN. NCAA Div II university.

St. Cloud,MN. NCAA Div II university.

Rochester, MN. The town Mayo built/healthcare.

Notice a pattern here? At least a third of the "metro" locations mentioned are
homes to NCAA Division I or II universities. Low unemployment? Yep. Low-paying
jobs (even for technical positions)? Yep. (A friend of mine from one of the
above Div. I "metros" says semi-tongue-in-cheek: so many grads love the area
and want to stay, a convenience store job requires a Masters).

Rochester is essentially healthcare through Mayo. If you're not a healthcare
professional, good luck. IBM used to have a major presence there, but I don't
know how much now.

~~~
padobson
What's most interesting about this is that higher education (through student
loans) and healthcare (through medicare, medicaid, social security, etc) are
two of the biggest industries subsidized by the government.

------
DanielBMarkham
"...Mailing unemployment insurance checks to people who aren't so much
unemployed as unemployable is obviously not an ideal public policy. But simply
doing nothing for them is cruel and insane..."

Let's look at our choices presented by the author. 1) Each of us gives money
from his pocket to pay people to do things nobody else wants them to do,
whether sitting on the couch, sweeping the streets, whatever, or 2) Be insane
and cruel.

Certainly such a discussion must have a bit more nuance than that, right?

I'm not going to dive into the argument, because there will be plenty of it,
mostly non-productive. I just wanted to point out the premise the article is
written around. Such premises do not make for good discussions by people of
varying opinions.

~~~
nickff
The author is obviously presenting a false-choice.

One option he does not even mention is that there could be an open an honest
public debate about what to do, and at least make a new program (not UI),
which would specifically and accountably address his issues.

Another thing which is not directly addressed is that when UI ends, people get
jobs. There is a large amount of literature to support this. In many cases, it
is simply not worth it for people to find a job, because UI and other benefits
can pay up to 90% of someone's fully employed salary.

------
fragsworth
Long-term unemployed have always been doomed.

However, a high unemployment rate (suppose 15%) means that the average person
is out of a job 15% of the time. In most cases, this is _not really that
devastating_. The problem right now is the unemployment benefits last so long
that you can stay out of a job to the point that you become irrelevant.

Learning new skills takes effort, and usually requires you to take a pay cut
as you get an entry-level job in a new field. Everyone can do it, though.
Instead, though, we are incentivising long-term laziness by granting money to
people who aren't working. I know at least two people who are just living off
their unemployment checks and not making any effort to find real work.

If the unemployed are getting a check, then people who are employed should get
that same check while employed. I think that's the only way to keep the
incentive to work. (This goes back to the idea of a minimum guaranteed income)

~~~
prodigal_erik
Apocryphally, most people are only a couple of paychecks ahead of their bills,
and would have to default on something when faced with 15% less income.

------
bsirkia
The idea of relocation assistance has always been something that interested
me. I often split time between Vermont and NYC, and don't totally get why
there aren't more programs to help people living in a rough, low-income
housing projects get to VT (or one of the other areas), where you can easily
find jobs and a nice place to rent for $300/month.

~~~
padobson
It sure would be nice if there was a mass transit system that could get people
from NY to Vermont in a few hours without requiring a month's wages to do it.

------
3pt14159
We'd probably save a lot of money in the long term if we helped people with
mental illness. Many who are long term unemployed or out of the work force all
together, are so because of addictions or depression.

Then again, there actually are some legit lazy people that will only ever work
enough to buy hydro and a roof over their head.

~~~
tekalon
Or too old, or out of date skills and don't know/have resources to learn new
ones.

------
twoodfin
If unemployment continues to drop or even accelerates its downward trend
without a corresponding drop in the labor force participation rate, can we at
least consider the possibility that some fraction of the "long term
unemployed" would always remain unemployed up until the moment when they
ceased being paid not to work?

Or, if you want to be more generous, ceased facing a massive effective
marginal "taxation" rate on their first couple thousand dollars of monthly
income.

I don't mean this as a moral judgment. I can imagine a host of situations
where being paid $20,000 a year or so to evaluate your employment options and
otherwise spend a lot of time doing non-wage-earning activities like spending
time with your kids would make perfect sense.

I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking
for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill.

~~~
hfsktr
"I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking
for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill."

I was on unemployment for a little over a year. I had to apply to 2 jobs a
week and every so often (only twice) I had to spend 3 hours (I felt a waste of
time but I am sure there were people who did need the help) at employment
services to some sort of meeting (called something like 'workforce re-entry
evaluation') where they gave advice on how to fill out applications etc. They
also had classes there that counted towards the job search requirements (learn
to use web, word, excel, etc).

You had to bring your job search records for them to look over also. I know
there are people who just sit on their ass but I really would have preferred
to be earning some money. I felt bad enough but then to have people say 'just
get a job' like I wasn't even trying. Half of them didn't believe that the gas
station send a rejection letter (at least they had the courtesy).

One of the problems was that this area isn't a tech hub. The bigger cities are
but just not paying the bills so you can move away and see if a job works
isn't a good solution (driving 6 hours for an interview at your own expense is
always fun though).

I got way less than $20K that year. At least it helped show how little I could
live^H^H^H^H survive on.

------
batbomb
Historically Oil booms help too. Most the places he mentioned are going
through a fracking renaissance. More importantly, it's low skill and high pay,
but often cold and demanding work (say Midland isn't cold to the roughneck
wrestling with the well in January.)

------
jasonkester
It's comforting to know that this, along with so many other things that most
people have to take for granted, doesn't apply to software developers.

Our little corner of the world is still so employee-friendly that it's really
hard to damage your career in any meaningful way if you're truly, provably
good at what you do. Certainly not by taking the odd five years off to start a
startup, travel the world, or play pickup basketball.

You'll still have your network when you decide to come back. Those guys will
be nicely distributed across dozens of tech companies, all of which need
developers like they need air.

~~~
vectorpush
It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier
and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS &
SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut
to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for
an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This
doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business
needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software
developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand
for software developers is displaced by... software.

In addition to that, increased competition from a global remote work force as
well as increased immigration sponsored by the tech lobby is going to crush
western developer affluence.

In another 15 years, things may be looking pretty grim for the average
developer.

~~~
ahomescu1
> It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming
> easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the
> cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new
> tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems
> with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off
> what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the
> explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't
> think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only
> realistically find work at software companies as demand for software
> developers is displaced by... software.

Couldn't you have said the same thing 15 years ago? I don't think anything
significant has changed since then.

Another problem with this thinking is software is never done, it just evolves
and changes. It also needs some serious maintenance. Even if the job of
software developers will be done by software, someone still needs to maintain
and improve that software (unless we get self-writing software, which I don't
see any time soon).

Another thing that keeps changing is hardware. Switching from computers to
phones and tablets and the web created completely new markets for phone and
web apps (written in Java/JavaScript) which weren't there a few years ago.
Who's to say there aren't going to be new markets a few years from now? (For
example, we'll need developers to write Google Glass apps).

In addition, even after all this evolution, current frameworks and languages
are still horrendous. The most popular languages right now are C++, Java,
JavaScript and PHP, all of them horrible to program in (more or less). I think
there's still plenty of work to do in this direction.

~~~
vectorpush
_Even if the job of software developers will be done by software, someone
still needs to maintain and improve that software_

Of course; my point is that you need a lot less programmers overall. Where a
team was once required, now a staff of one or two will suffice, and this trend
will continue as it becomes easier to do more with less. I'm not saying that
the professional programmer will cease to exist, rather, I'm suggesting that
the employment prospects for developers will inevitably fall in line with
other industries.

 _Who 's to say there aren't going to be new markets a few years from now?
(For example, we'll need developers to write Google Glass apps)._

I don't think there is much longevity in a "apps for yet-another-platform"
future. To-Do lists and tower defense games have lost their novelty and
useful/interesting apps are pretty rare. I do see platforms like Google Glass
and Occulus Rift as potentially huge markets, but the _cost_ of producing
software for these platforms continues to fall right along with the
discretionary income of all your potential customers who aren't employed as
software engineers. It's a rapid race to the bottom.

 _In addition, even after all this evolution, current frameworks and languages
are still horrendous._

Except for the burgeoning movement of hip languages and tools you wouldn't
describe as "horrible to program in" that has driven the hype and growth
behind the contemporary software golden age.

------
woodchuck64
"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point
in bothering"

Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady
unemployment insurance check?

~~~
Ensorceled
Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs
and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed.

But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job.

So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to
get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.

~~~
buckbova
"They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque."

Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets?

I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that
they suspect was "below them".

For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.

~~~
rickhanlonii
>a job that is "below them"

This is absolutely not why people are not getting of UI to take a minimum wage
job. Right now, if they were to accept a minimum wage job, they would lose UI
and get paid less for the job then they are getting from UI. _It is
financially advantageous to stay on UI in those cases._ Without that
incentive, they would take the low wage job, but they would have to get on
welfare/food stamps which the rest of us have to pay for.

So, tax payers are either paying for UI or subsidizing the difference between
what those employees are paid and a living wage.

The solution to this mess is simple: Make companies who are profiting billions
share those profits and pay their employees a living wage. You do this by
raising the minimum wage. With a higher minimum wage, it would become a
financially sound decision to get off UI and work a minimum wage job, and
taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the difference.

~~~
buckbova
"You do this by raising the minimum wage."

I don't mind this, but I don't see it to be the solution. These multi-billion
dollar corporations will find a way to cut out the labor using more automation
in workflow or they will out-source this work.

What I'd like to seee is tarrifs go up considerably. If you want to offshore
your labor then we'll make up the difference at the dock when you offload your
goods.

~~~
padobson
That automation costs money (read: labor) to develop. It also costs money
(read: labor) to maintain. Either hire unskilled people at the higher minimum
wage or hire skilled people to install and service your automated stuff.
Either way, you're hiring people.

On another note, if we're going to be a progressive society, we need to start
being more progressive with the way regulate businesses with things like the
minimum wage. Making McDonald's (1.8mm employees, $27.5 billion revenue) pay
the same minimum wage as Fred's Burger cart (3 employees, $73k revenue) is
ridiculous. Small businesses should be able to pay a lower minimum wage than
bigger businesses, if we're going to be a progressive society.

If we're not going to be a progressive society, then there's no reason to talk
minimum wage in the first place.

~~~
buckbova
Many McDonalds locations are franchises, so they are actually individual
businesses. They aren't paid by McDonalds but by the franchisee.

~~~
padobson
I don't think this changes the point. A single McDonald's franchise would pay
its employees a different minimum wage than McDonald's Corporate, and Fred's
burger cart would still be paying a different minimum wage to his two
employees than both.

If you find there's some legal manipulation that could go on so larger
companies could avoid paying the higher minimum wage, well, then that's no
different than every other progressive law on the books.

------
maerF0x0
This article fails to recognize that there are more ways to earn an income
than "get a job" . Write a (book|song|game|movie), grow some food, sell a
service, invent something, sell some clothes.

One year I was laid off and "employed" 3 days later because I became a
freelance contractor. For the right price many many skills are marketable.

I as a businessman would never turn away someone who had the nerve, need and
drive to come to me and say "I'll bust my ass for half my usual price, just
dont let me starve".

~~~
talmand
I'll take a shot at addressing your suggestions.

Write a book, song, game, movie? For income? Are you serious? Even if you are
of the type to pull that off, how will you support yourself as you create
these things? It's not the same as a job with a weekly income.

Grow some food? Actually, more people should do this. Hopefully the local
government won't stop you from doing it because your neighbors whine about you
growing tomatoes by the side of your house.

Sell a service? Plausible, if you have a skill that fits a niche because
otherwise you're probably already entering a highly competitive and low margin
industry. Also, depending on the service you sell, the local government may
want to have a word or two with you which will likely require capital.

Invent something? See the part about writing a book, song, game or movie
above. Same thing, if not worse because lawyers.

Sell some clothes? True, you could sell just about everything. In some cases
that might be ideal because you might be able to downgrade your lifestyle just
a tad to lower your expenses.

But good for you that you had a skill that translated into a freelance
contractor market. That doesn't work for everyone. I've never heard of
freelance contractor cashiers for instance. I guess they could learn a skill
first but, again, how do you support yourself during this time?

It's good for you that you're willing to exploit someone's skills at half
their value but not every business looks at it that way. I would imagine most
managers would not want to hire someone at lower value or being over-qualified
for because often that means the job is often a stepping stone to a better
job. They see it as a risk of losing the investment they made in an employee
that left at the first opportunity.

Not that I'm saying your suggestions are necessarily bad ideas. It's just not
always so easy a solution, such as people who suggest just picking up and
moving to where the jobs are. With a little thought one can see that things
are not always as simple as what they sometimes should be.

------
crazy1van
> The country failed these people first by letting the labor market stay so
> slack for so long that they became unhirable, and now we're going to fail
> them again.

This seems suspect. People lose jobs for specific reasons. Maybe a specific
sector is shrinking. Maybe automation is replacing workers of a certain skill
set. Maybe cheap labor elsewhere caused your employer to move.

Blaming "the country" for failing these people "by letting the labor market
stay so slack" is meaningless in its vagueness.

~~~
twoodfin
I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor
market after the recession of '01-'02\. A milder recession to be sure (though
you wouldn't know it from the political rhetoric at the time), but one that
nonetheless hit employment hard. Within three years net employment was back
where it had previously been, and the unemployment rate was back down in the
4%'s. There hadn't been massive spending; most of the deficit increase was
lowered taxes and lowered revenue.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor
> market after the recession of '01-'02.

I'm not sure how Yglesias would, but to me the answer is obvious. The 2001
recession (official dates are still, IIRC, March-November 2001, though there
was, around 2004, talk that the start date maybe should have been pinned
somewhat earlier, I don't think it was ever actually revised), was, as you
note, much shorter and, in part because there was a lot more access to credit,
which supported a quick rebound of aggregate demand and a return to expansion
and better top-line employment numbers (a number of factors, include tax
policy changes which shifted the distribution of gains upwards, made it a
fairly hollow expansion in which the bottom three quintiles all saw income
declines and the next quintile was flat, however, which, help set the stage
for a deeper recession with a much slower recovery when the bottom fell out of
the housing market, since it was a lot harder for demand to rebound.)

------
geogra4
We're living in a 21st century economy with 20th century ideas on work. The
economy doesn't need 40+ hours from everyone to produce what we need. I agree
with some others here that a Basic Income at a reasonable level would help out
a lot.

------
shams93
You also have older workers although well educated a nd skilled, pushed out of
the economy via ageism but still far from retirement.

------
worldsayshi
I don't get. Just create more jobs! There are plenty of things that need to be
done and those unemployed shouldn't be left in the cold so we are going to pay
them something anyway. The only "valid" reason there are able and unemployed
people is "to scare the shit out of the middle class".

~~~
tekalon
Who will create these jobs, part of the issue is that no one is willing to pay
the amount it takes to create the jobs (pay rate, training, taxes, insurance).
Unless absolutely necessary, companies don't want to hire extra people just to
'create jobs'.

~~~
talmand
The usual answer is government. Many people have a negative view towards such
things but can be useful if done correctly. Such as infrastructure projects
that need to be done anyway. But alas, some people in the system don't agree
with such a thought.

~~~
tekalon
It would be ideal, but the government has no money, and cities are going
bankrupt. I would think some sort of tax incentives (or other something) for
on job training, make hiring cheaper/easier or moving offshore jobs to local
would be the better solutions.

~~~
talmand
True, usually only the federal government can support such projects because
they print their money whenever it is needed.

Tax incentives only go so far because the cost of having jobs local go beyond
just those taxes. Payroll and its associated taxes can be expensive. Those tax
incentives would have to somehow offset those costs as well.

------
bassclef
the majority haven't been looking for work.. I was long term unemployeed.. I
sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job.. it paid shit,
but at least i was no longer on the tit of america.

The problem with long term unemployment is the same issue I ran into the other
day on an elevator.. One girl asks another girl, "did you get a job yet?" the
girl responds, "Giiiirrrrrl, da gubament gonna give me 2 hundred dollas a
week, why i gonna get a jerb?"

Get em off the tit and get em working or they starve and die.. either way win
win for us all.

~~~
bloat
Nice self righteous racial stereotyping there - thanks.

~~~
talmand
It's not stereotyping if it's a quote, but then again, we don't know the
accuracy of the quote.

~~~
001sky
Ok, but "quotes" can be used to further sterotypes, tho. in addition to
accuracy there is always context...I'm sure the nazi's quoted a couple of jews
in their day.

~~~
talmand
Well, sure it could. But to me, if a quote from a person somehow reinforces a
stereotype of a group the quoted person is labeled as part of, then that
implies more about the person hearing the quote than the person stating the
quote.

A person can use a quote out of context all day long but it doesn't truly
reinforce the stereotype until a person hearing the quote agrees with the out-
of-context usage.

For example, if a person from Mars says something stupid and someone provides
me with a quote. Do I say to myself; "That person is stupid" or "Martians are
stupid"? If I go with the second then the problem is within me, not the quote
nor the person who provided it.

So, did the Nazi's quote Jews out of context to further their aims of
denigrating them? I'm sure they did. But it only worked for people who agreed
with the idea in the first place.

