
Older white males hurt more by this recession - mshafrir
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2009-07-29-oldermales_N.htm?obref=obnetwork
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bengebre
"White men over 55 had a record 6.5% unemployment rate in the second quarter."

The overall unemployment rate stands at 9.5% today and averaged 9.3% in the
second quarter. While I have sympathy for anyone involuntarily unemployed, it
seems like white men over 55 are doing relatively well all things considered.

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omouse
You're double-counting. Those overall rates _include_ white men over 55.

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sokoloff
They're in the numerator (those unemployed) AND in the denominator (all white
men over 55 in the labor force), so that's not really double counting.

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alanthonyc
"Dean Canaris, 56...Harry Jackson, 55...Mark Montgomery, 53,...older men cut
loose from employment at the peak of their earning power and work experience."

I had never stopped to think about this before. Is it a common assumption that
one's earning power peaks in one's fifties?

~~~
timwiseman
I think so, at least for the "normal person" that follows a path along the
line of school into a series of jobs with medium to large organizations.

Most salaries are based on seniority or else on skills and abilities. Although
those are not the same thing by any stretch, they both _normally_ are
correlated with age, though of course there are numerous exceptions.

Seniority takes time, and only time, to build up. So while the older people do
not necessarily have seniority, the young necessarily do not.

Skill, experience, and knowledge generally improve with age, especially amoung
the ambitious that continue taking opportunities to improve those. Even more
than that, it takes time to build up a portfolio/resume/references to prove to
employers that you have those needed skills and experiences.

So as a general rule income will go up with age. But people start retiring in
their sixties, for some people in their early sixties. Also, some others that
do not fully retire will transition into a career with less stress and
correspondingly less income. So, average income for the population as a whole
is likely to start plummetting by that point.

So, for the population as a whole, peak income would come in the mid to late
50s with a rapid drop off afterwards. There are of course many outliers. Most
athletes and startup founders for instance will pass their peak long before
that, but they make up a small portion of the population as a whole.

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gaius
And yet, Feminists still complain that the workplace is biased against women.

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pavel_lishin
I know this is just me picking nits, but

> Mark Montgomery, 53, was let go from an Owens Corning insulation factory in
> April and can't afford his $575 monthly mortgage payment.

What, local WalMarts aren't hiring?

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dilettante
Minimum wage at a WalMart is not a survival strategy. If you are lucky enough
to get full time (unlikely), one minimum wage job is not going to feed a
family and make a mortgage payment. $1300 a month gross, $975 net, $400 after
mortgage, $200 after essential utilities, negative balance after pre existing
debt service. Nothing for food, medical, essential transportation to and from
job, etc. Sorry, the house must go, file bankruptcy, move to a homeless
shelter next door to WalMart and walk to work.

~~~
mynameishere
_Minimum wage at a WalMart is not a survival strategy._

What a strange thing to say, since for heads-of-households, survival is the
only reason one would work an entry level job at WalMart.

