
The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead - cjdulberger
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/the-rise-of-men-who-dont-work-and-what-they-do-instead.html
======
JumpCrisscross
The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal
disability insurance is well covered in an episode of _This American Life_
[1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers
facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which
unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other
hand, is federally funded. The intersection of these trends, as documented by
_This American Life_ , lands us in the curious situation of state governments
encouraging their unemployed to seek disability benefits (thereby shifting
their burden onto the federal budget).

In the short run, state unemployment and federal disability benefits have
similar effects. Social stability is enhanced through buying off the poor. But
long-term disability is not designed for the under-trained. Its means-testing
paradigm discourages even the exploration of employment options which might
jeopardise the applicant's disability status. Thus a one-way valve to
dependency on the state's largesse.

[1] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/490/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits)

~~~
zaroth
And it's not just disability benefits. When you stop and really analyze it;
Medicaid and health insurance credits, SSI, food stamps, EITC, FICA,
progressive income tax rates, refundable tax credits, phased-out tax
deductions, even things like housing and energy assistance, etc.

There's easily $60,000 of services, utilities, fees, and taxes that you pay
when earning $100k, that you get for free or don't have to pay if you earn $0.
As @fredophile says, then you still have to add in the direct/indirect costs
of going out and earning that money (e.g. childcare for starters), and you can
easily gain net-zero or negative benefit all the way up to $100k of household
income.

I'm sure people must have researched this extensively, and can give a properly
cited cost analysis, but it's something I've been calling the 'middle class
crucible'. Until you break out on the other side of $150k household income,
the vast majority of your earned income is effectively running on a treadmill.
E.g. On the order of 80 cents of each dollar you earn.

Every progressive (means-tested) social support program or tax rate, by
definition, is a penalty for working. These programs have grown so big, and
phase-out so aggressively in the income curve, it's an incredible trap /
attack against the middle class.

~~~
jameshart
That actually sounds like you might be able to back that up - would be
interesting to see the actual stats. But I think you're missing a certain
qualitative difference though - the services the 100K-income household is
getting for their 60k are _significantly better_ than the services the
0-income household is being given. Obviously they're probably spending money
on better food than the food stamps would cover, they're likely living in
better conditions in a better neighborhood, and their health insurance
probably gives them more choices than they would have on medicaid.

~~~
zaroth
There's definitely a qualitative argument. Certainly that's what you see if
you turn on any ad-supported media, and you're inundated with that "quality of
life" everyone is _selling_ to the middle-class.

But for example, you can pay ~$1000/mo for a family of 4 for "Silver" health
insurance and earning > $63k you would have to pay the full amount. Credits
pay for almost the entire cost (aka $12,000 of tax-free income from the Fed)
if your household income is $33k. So under just one program (ACA), $30k of
incremental work disqualifies you from $12k of assistance. And that's for the
same exact plan/service.

Then you get below $33k household income and instead of paying thousands for a
Silver plan with a $6,000 family deductible, you pay basically nothing and
have no deductible for Medicaid / Medi-Cal. That's effectively a $24,000 /
year value for a family of 4. [1]

In both cases, you can argue about access to top-specialists for chronic care,
but certainly access to acute care coverage is equivalent (i.e. hospitals
can't base their ER services based on ability to pay). In many ways Medicaid
is better because deductibles are a hell of a lot lower than $13,500 Bronze /
$6,000 Silver.

By the way, Whole Foods takes food stamps. So that's another example where you
get straight up cash for not working. Up to $8,400 / year, cash on a debit
card, which phases out as household income goes to ~$30k / year (plus allowed
deductions) for a family of 4. [2]

If you have a qualifying disability and have to make the choice of giving up
work and going on DI, assuming you have the work history credits, it's another
up to $31,000 / year of income (not entirely tax-free though). [3]

That's over $60k right there, and there are many more programs to account. It
would add up to well over $100k except you can't fully stack all of the
programs, e.g. CA SDI payments count against SSDI payments.

I was thinking about making a "how much do you lose by working" micro-site as
an excuse to play with D3 and interactive visualization, targeted to residents
of California, but the whole thing was too infuriating I haven't mustered the
motivation to do it.

[1] -
[http://www.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/#incomeGuidelines](http://www.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/#incomeGuidelines)

[2] - [http://www.stanworks.com/community-reports/other-
services/co...](http://www.stanworks.com/community-reports/other-
services/content.php?nav=food-stamps/food-stamps-faq.htm)

[3] - [http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/how-much-in-
ssd.html](http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/how-much-in-ssd.html)

~~~
chipotle_coyote
While this is interesting, I'm not sure what point we should really be taking
away from it. That government assistance is so good it's a motivator not to
work? It's easy to play with numbers and make it look like you're "losing
money" by working, but it's somewhat disingenuous. For instance, in practice
that "$30K of incremental work" is statistically very likely to involve a job
with a company that provides health care for their employees and dependents.

Furthermore, your description of the way food stamps work is correct but
elides how that "phase out" works. Under current CalFresh guidelines[1], a
household of 4 grossing $30K a year would get $98 a month. If they grossed
$24K a year that would go up to $218 a month -- an extra $1440 a year, when
you work it out, which is to say much less than what they'd net by just making
another $6000 a year.

[1]: [http://foodstampguide.org/calculating-the-grant-how-much-
do-...](http://foodstampguide.org/calculating-the-grant-how-much-do-you-get/)

In practice, I'd suggest that most of these calculations are going to work out
in roughly the same way: yes, you're "losing out" on government assistance by
making more money, but the benefits you accrue from _actually making more
money_ more than offset that.

~~~
zaroth
chipotle_coyote, you give the perfect example (actually it's close to the
worst case part of the curve). A family of 4 making $24k/year, working their
ass off to increase their income 25% to $30k/year. But at the end of the year,
what happened?

    
    
      Gross Increase in Income: $6,000
      - FICA:                  ($  918)
      - Fed Income Tax:        ($  900)
      - State Income Tax:      ($  500)
      - Reduced Food Stamps:   ($1,440)
      - Reduced EITC:          ($1,260)  [21% phase out after $23,260]
      - Reduced ACA:           ($ ???)   [Just about to lose Medi-Cal]
    

That's just top of my head. There are other programs I'm definitely forgetting
or don't know about. There's _at least $5,000_ of additional taxes you pay,
and credits you lose, for earning that $6,000. If I had all the numbers, I'm
sure said hypothetical family is _worse off_ earning the extra $6,000. They
literally now have less money to spend on food every week.

Think about how broken this is. At the point in the curve where adding $6,000
in family income could actually be life-changing, the government claws back
_at least 83% of it_?! Fucking A... (sorry, this really makes me mad).

> "$30K of incremental work" is statistically very likely to involve a job
> with a company that provides health care

I count benefits as part of income. So if part of the increased payroll
expense is actually spent by the employer paying for a private health plan
(with a high deductible and cost sharing with the employee) that's a huge net-
loss for the family versus getting cash income from the employer and keeping
their free health care from Medi-Cal. (It makes zero difference to the
employer, ACA penalties aside, either way it's a fully deductible business
expense)

Edit: I see you gave two examples, $24k vs $30k, and lets say $30k vs $60k. If
we do a detailed realistic budget accounting for all costs, credits, programs,
etc. you will find "earning $60k" you actually have less money to spend than
"earning $30k". You will be net-negative if you have any significant health
care expenses at all. It's completely counter-intuitive, and in fact,
borderline insane.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
> I count benefits as part of income.

While there's a case to be made for that, it's not what most people do -- and
it's not what you do for computing benefit eligibility for food stamps, ACA,
and other government programs, AFAIK. So I'm not sure you _should_ count
benefits as income for this purpose. In principle you're right re: getting
cash income instead, but in practice, I'm not sure it's that clearcut.

Re: taxes vs. credits, it would be _really_ interesting to actually work that
out. I'm not convinced your take is right, but I'm not convinced my take is
right, either. :) I didn't intentionally pick the perfect example; the $24K a
year came from typing "2000" into the spreadsheet I downloaded from the
CalFresh web site because "3000" was too high to qualify. I didn't actually
try any numbers other than 2000 and 2500. But my suspicion remains that _most_
people would be better off actually working than taking assistance programs,
both in purely pragmatic terms and in less quantifiable terms -- I've known a
fair number of people who make assistance-qualifying incomes but I haven't
known a single one who wants to be in that position. (Which is of course
anecdotal, but it's still interesting to me.)

(Also, I don't think you can really count every possible credit -- most people
can't qualify for disability income, for instance. And the observation I made
about not wanting to be in that position is _extremely_ relevant here; I've
known a couple people who get permanent disability income and they absolutely
do not consider it a good thing. They're making less than they were when they
could actually get employment, and that's not getting into unquantifiable but
real things like damage to their self-esteem.)

------
MCRed
Look ma, that's me! Free of a soul crushing corporate job, back to doing a
"startup", I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of
my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in!

I think there are a lot of people out there like me. I have some money coming
from side projects, several opportunities to grow that, and several
opportunities for new side projects.

And quite a long personal runway before I have to "get a job" again.

If I can get to personal ramen profitability, that would be great.

And if my cofounders and I get a real startup off the ground that can pay us
salaries.... well, then I can start showing up in statistics as employed
again.

But either way, it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age
20 years ago.

And that's a huge shift-- in opportunity towards the individual.

~~~
tluyben2
I have never had 'a job' and had startups (and later mature companies) since I
was 15 (I am 40 now). I am not sure what age you are, but you need to know
this thing for sure if you are past, I think, around 30 as running a life like
this can be very painful. There simply is a tiny chance of 'big success' while
most just live in almost poverty the first 20-30 years of doing this. That's
also why I think you are probably young and haven't seen that yet ; most give
up and tell stories to their kids later about it.

Not to squash your enthusiasm; just saying that 'control of my destiny' is
mostly not true at all; you are being lived by actual constraints of life. If
you get a mortgage, kids, spouse, investors etc these constraints can easily
'live' you instead of you controlling anything. I was lucky, but just saying
to be careful in thinking this and keep tabs on the 'do I actually still like
this' factor. A regular job, for most of my friends who started out with me,
was a blessing.

~~~
MCRed
I'm older than you. Have done this before, spent 6 years "unemployed"
traveling the world before I "got a job" that turned out to be a terrible
decision.

Of course you don't have control over your destiny to the point of just
wishing you had a million bucks... but I also now don't have a psychotic boss
whose only experience has been in the military micromanaging software
development and doing everything he can to "control" things without any
understanding of software development.

~~~
tluyben2
Indeed that's a reason I do it as well and I applaud all for going that route
; I'm just saying that if you do it for that reason you might turn out in a
smaller prison than actually having a boss. But if you are not greedy, don't
care about materialistic things too much, know how to save money for a rainy
day and have a family that supports that way of living, I wouldn't want it any
other way.

------
brandonmenc
> The places with the highest rates of male nonwork include parts of Arizona,
> New Mexico, Nevada, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas and Michigan.

The areas of high unemployment in Arizona and New Mexico overlap almost
exactly with the Indian reservations. A problem deserving its own analysis.

~~~
hessenwolf
Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were
placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?

~~~
db48x
The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic
growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and
start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply
incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example
go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.

~~~
protomyth
Perhaps you should look at the conditions that were imposed on these areas.
Horrible government education and health care, relocation of individuals
resulting in horrific suicide rates, boarding schools that beat students for
keeping their culture and language, US government mishandling resources to the
point the Dept of Interior was required to cut their internet connection
multiple times. Never mind the oil and uranium problems.

Its a culture problem, but not from the Native American side. The current
generation suffered all these things and is trying to dig out of a hole. The
next generation is better poised to grow as the culture is returning.

Also, I would love for you to go to the Seminoles and read them your comment.
I expect they would have a words. I would imagine these stats also don't cover
pow-wow circuit youth very well, but that would take research.

As a side note, this is the most ignorant and racist comment I have read on
HN.

~~~
Detrus
There was this article recently that being poor is a set of bad habits and
someone commented "poor is a permanent condition, broke is temporary."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2590535](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2590535)

Stating it that way seems reasonable enough. I haven't read "Don't Sleep,
There are Snakes" fully but from summaries I'm guessing the tribes refused to
accept Western ways and were comfortable living the way that let them survive
for thousands of years. Which is a reasonable thing to do if you could isolate
yourself from the rest of humanity and competition.

This article about Northern native tribes
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8449134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8449134)
says that they were far enough along building a settled society of farmers and
villages when apocalypse struck and the survivors became roving nomads. Just
like all our post-apocalypse movies!

~~~
protomyth
You are missing my basic premise, the culture was almost destroyed and is in
the process of building backup now. The book has nothing in common with the
experience of US Tribes.

The tribes ran the gamut in what they had before Columbus. It is know that
trade routes existed bring things only found in the arctic regions south to
the deserts and beyond.

~~~
db48x
Oh, I agree completely. If smallpox hadn't been a factor, then the tribes
would have been strong enough to compete. They would have kept their cultures
and been able to adapt and grow. It's good to hear that they are rebuilding
their culture; it means that they won't die out.

The world would look very different today if the European explorers had
brought back a virulent disease (like smallpox) instead of merely chronic ones
(like syphilis). They simply had no idea what the risks were. They lucked out
with malaria and yellow fever as well; most of Europe is too far north for
them to be as big a problem as they are in Africa, or as they were in the
American south.

~~~
protomyth
"If smallpox hadn't been a factor, then the tribes would have been strong
enough to compete."

Smallpox is the least of the problems that the tribes faced. The government
abuse of land and wealth, the beating out of culture, the killing of food
sources, and parking the tribes in the middle of nowhere on land that wouldn't
grow anything. Broken promises and laughing officials are the problems.

------
jokoon
I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life.

"what they do instead"

Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some
technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my
programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed
of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of
my reach in terms of skill, experience, motivation and networking. I took anti
depressants for 4 years but am not so unhealthy in term of mental health...

I'm back at school again, for some equivalent degree, but on 1 year, I have an
internship starting wednesday, I really hope it will hook me to some job
opportunities.

If I don't get the degree nor a job, well I could really try to start some
crowdfunded game project or social network, but I don't feel the industry
really needs that many programmers. Maybe I'm really incompetent.

~~~
morgante
> I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers.

That's definitely false, at least in the US.

~~~
zanny
That's definitely false, we aren't virtualizing brains, we don't have sapient
AI, and Mesa still needs tessellation shaders. Plenty of work left to be done.

~~~
khyryk
Are those the problems that are best solved by throwing more and more
programmers at them? If anything, the people doing the grunt work would be PhD
students (save the shaders, perhaps).

------
bruceb
There are books on this phenomenon. Part of what they say is now men have
access to their basic needs with out needing to work as much. Entertainment is
abundant and relatively cheap and sex isn't tied to marriage. You can lounge
around and be if not exactly satisfied, at least not terrible wanting for
stuff. Of course these guys are screwed when it comes to retirement.

~~~
ctdonath
Shortly before meeting m'lady, I'd nearly paid off the house and otherwise
driven my expenses to near zero. The prospect of withdrawing from the system
("going Galt") was becoming a realistic option; grow much/most of my food (as
my folks had growing up), find a mundane job in walking/biking distance
(notable as I lived in the country), and spend my time writing what software I
wanted and puttering in a back-to-basics life. We live in a culture of cheap
abundance, and if un-hitched and rent/mortgage-free then very little work
effort is needed to get by in a comfortable, if humble, lifestyle. (Then I met
m'lady, and life got very expensive very fast.)

~~~
EC1
Are you saying 'm'lady' unironically?

~~~
ctdonath
Yes, as the period referred to spanned unmet/acquaintance/girlfriend/wife.
"M'lady" seems a more respectable term than "significant other".

------
patja
The article states that every month the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor
Statistics asks all men who are not working and not receiving unemployment
benefits what their situation is.

How does this process work? Having been in this population, I know for certain
nobody from the government has ever asked me for this information.

~~~
akgerber
Not all of them, just a random sample of the population which includes some of
them: [http://www.census.gov/acs/www/](http://www.census.gov/acs/www/)

------
blazespin
The problem is there is a multiplier affect from technology today that causes
unemployment. The average IQ required to be economically relevant is
increasing each year.

~~~
zo1
Do you have any alternatives to what we seem to be doing at the moment?
Namely, propping those individuals up from life-failure by state aide programs
funded by people that are able to sustain themselves and supposedly others.

~~~
marvin
I would say that this is actually a good solution. It's lopsided today since
we don't officially acknowledge that this is what we're doing, but if the
trend continues, you and I will also eventually be hit by this development
(unless we're exceedingly lucky).

Global wealth tax on large personal fortunes (say, 0.2-1.0% per annum of
fortunes greater than $2MM) and even redistribution to everyone will make the
solution more transparent and fair.

------
mkingston
(A little facetiously, but..) Perhaps this is just the decrease of work
required that was historically expected by economists, being applied unevenly.

Of course there's nothing in the article to suggest many of these people are
happy.

------
IndianAstronaut
>Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave
the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers

Classic lump of labor fallacy.

~~~
geebee
You've alerted us to the existence of a fallacy, but you make no effort to
explain what the fallacy is or how the argument you are refuting has committed
this fallacy.

You did this in a previous discussion with me as well

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8691296)

Of course, you are absolutely free to do this if you wish. But I did take the
time to explain why I felt you had misdiagnosed the situation, and explained
how the position I held was not undermined by the lump of labor fallacy.

Just my own opinion, but if you're going to cite this fallacy, I do think you
should be explain how you feel it relates to the current discussion and be
prepared to engage in a debate about whether it is relevant.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Fair enough.

The main reason why there is a lump of labor fallacy is that it rests on the
fact that there is just a fixed quantity of jobs in the economy. A fixed
amount of jobs means that thers is only a fixed amount of goods and services
people desire. But this is wrong because human wants and desires are
unlimited. This is the basic condition in economics. So in theory there is an
infinite amount of jobs to be done to cater to our infinite wants.

Now, there are structural reasons for why there isn't universal employment.
These can range from government policies, to technological reasons. If people
want multistoried houses, and builders can build them, they will have jobs but
if the government has policies which block those houses, the builders will not
have those jobs. Another thing people want is to travel into space, say a
visit to alpha centauri. There may be tourism operator jobs who can do that
but technology does not exist which can take us there.

The main focus of government policies to promote and encourage job growth
should be on building technology to promote new job creating industries,
promoting skills growth to manage these industries, and removing or modifying
policies which hinder job growth.

If trade or immigration caused a loss of jobs, the 90s would have been a time
of high unemployment. It wasn't because a new industry came up to generate
jobs and other jobs were created to service those workers. The same goes for
policies to shorten hours or promote early retirement.

~~~
geebee
Yes, that's more or less the lump of labor fallacy. I'm still not sure why
it's relevant here.

Here's the full quote from the nytimes article:

"Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave
the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers. But studies
across countries and time suggest that crowding-out may not actually be a
problem. Economies do not appear to have a fixed number of jobs. When more
older people are working, they are earning money that they will then spend in
ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example."

So in this case, I don't disagree with you, but it seems that the times
article identifies the lump of labor fallacy immediately after the quote you
provided.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
>still not sure why it's relevant here.

I think it is important to point out because so few people still know about
it. If few people know about it, they are likely to support harmful policies
that they think will help the economy or job creation, but will not.

~~~
geebee
Oh, I agree, I'm just not sure why you felt it was necessary to point it out
when the article had already done just that. I don't really see what your
comment ads. Were you worried that people had only read the first sentence in
the middle of the article and stopped there, not reading the next sentence?

In the other case - our previous discussion, I explained how I though you had
misapplied the lump of labor fallacy. You claimed that notion that H1B workers
could displace local workers commits the lump of labor fallacy.

I made an argument that very specific, targeted immigration programs designed
to increase workforce in a narrow sector of the economy can in fact cause
market distortions that lead to displacement and deterrence. This is a pretty
common objection to these sorts of visas. Many people who support free markets
and free immigration see a real problem when the government starts creating
programs where a worker is allowed to come to the US only under certain
employment conditions (in this case, related to working as an employee to a
high tech company).

Even Milton Friedman chimed in:

"There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their
employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent,
it is a subsidy."

I assure you that Milton Friedman was aware of the lump of labor fallacy. It's
a bit more complicated than just citing a fallacy.

------
ap22213
As of 2011, there were 3.5M disabled veterans, of which 800K were receiving
significant disability benefits.

[https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_...](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff21.html)

------
hessenwolf
That's an awesome graph. I mean, we could say some things like that the
thickness of the gray bit is not so clear, or that it might be better if
smoothed, perhaps the legend would be better elsewhere than in the coloured
areas, but... it is still a totally expressive and elegant graphic.

~~~
aragot
Yes it made me realize the rise of retirement-aged persons who don't retire.
"Can't" retire? What a shift, in only 14 years!

~~~
hessenwolf
I did a lot of work a while back doing longevity projections, i.e., stochastic
models of the rate of change of mortality rates at different ages as time goes
by. It is a bit of a trend that pension funds might choose to offset their
risk by entering into longevity swaps, which work like interest rate swaps,
swapping floating payments for fixed payments.

Anyway, I attended a few conferences on aging, and all that fun. One thing
that stuck out was that, in Germany at least, the ratio of workers to retirees
of 4:1 will be more like 2:1 when I reach the current age of retirement.

Another is that you need to consider years of abled life.

A last is that I will never retire, and probably you won't either.

Note that, in Bismarck's time, life expectancy was about 55:

One persistent myth about the German program is that it adopted age 65 as the
standard retirement age because that was Bismarck's age. This myth is
important because Germany was one of the models America looked to in designing
its own Social Security plan; and the myth is that America adopted age 65 as
the age for retirement benefits because this was the age adopted by Germany
when they created their program. In fact, Germany initially set age 70 as the
retirement age (and Bismarck himself was 74 at the time) and it was not until
27 years later (in 1916) that the age was lowered to 65. By that time,
Bismarck had been dead for 18 years.

~~~
saalweachter
Another myth is that the designers of Social Security in the US did not expect
lifespans to increase over time; we are actually a little below target right
now on expected lifespans.

------
mamurphy
I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are
retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really
makes people reexamine their decisions.

~~~
marktangotango
At 40+ you realize you've pretty much accomplished everything you're going to
with your life. All those plans and ambitions? You've had 40 years to act, if
you haven't done something yet, chances are you're not going to. Its all down
hill from there. Hopefully you've got a family you can put you're energy into.
At least this was how i felt 40+, ymmv.

~~~
marktangotango
Thanks for the down votes, guess it's wasn't obvious enough I posted my
personal experience, was the ymmv (your mileage may vary) at the end not
enough?

~~~
philbarr
I think you might be suffering from the current "downvote mania that we're not
allowed to talk about or else you'll get downvoted" on HN.

EDIT: I disagreed with you, with a following comment, and didn't downvote you.

------
emodendroket
I occasionally see the rise of the single-breadwinner family where a woman has
a job celebrated as forward progress for gender equality or something, but
that's misguided. Frankly, a lot of men are just unable to work and then their
families are forced to subsist on the woman's job, which still pays, on
average, less. Newspapers talk a lot about high-powered female executives with
stay-at-home husbands and so on, but that's a small sliver, not somehow
representative of the trend.

~~~
golemotron
A more subtle point is that the incentive structure for men to work had has
evaporated. In divorce (which is largely initiated by women), men stand to
lose more in alimony and child support. The economics say that if you marry
(and far more people decide not to do these days), you probably shouldn't be
the sole breadwinner and you certainly shouldn't earn more than your wife.

I know a number of couples where the man just doesn't work and is supported by
his wife. I don't think it's a conscious choice, it's unconscious and based on
incentive.

~~~
emodendroket
Alimony isn't just magically awarded in every divorce case, you know.

~~~
golemotron
True, but child-support and the children go overwhelmingly to the mother.

~~~
scarecrowbob
I might be wrong, but something like 4% of divorce cases have custody
determined by the court, so that's a decision made by fathers (I have custody
of my kids, and had no problem getting it, FWIW).

~~~
dropit_sphere
True, but it's not a choice made in a vacuum. Often the context is: I'm the
only one making enough money to support the kids, so I _have_ to work for this
to work out at all, and I can't afford day care. So for the sake of the kids
the mother gets custody. "Choice," true---but not free and uninfluenced, as
you imply.

------
wtbob
> People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these
> figures.

One of these is not like the other…

Everyone in the military (at least, who's not also imprisoned) should count as
fully-employed.

~~~
bachmeier
I think the reason they excluded those in the military is to allow an apples-
to-apples comparison through time. It could be argued that the large number of
draftees through the early 1970's forced some otherwise nonemployed into
employment.

~~~
protomyth
I think you are right, but I think they are wrong for doing it given the
importance of the military in a lot of regions and the military being a known
career path for many young males.

~~~
innguest
It's not employment because it doesn't generate wealth.

Your warm feelings about it notwithstanding.

~~~
protomyth
So, excluding all government jobs would be appropriate? No police or fire in
your numbers either?

~~~
innguest
The government owes $118 trillion total (adding unfunded liabilities). When it
can balance its budget than maybe we can have this discussion.

Otherwise, anyone can steal $18 trillion from the masses under the pretense of
using it for the public good - when really all (yes, 100%) it does is pay debt
interest according to the government's own report on how tax money is spent -
and "create" several jobs for you as well.

So no, those shouldn't count unless you want to keep on living on fantasy
land, believe government's inflation numbers (and close your eyes when you go
grocery shopping), and ignore the fact those government "jobs" do not make us
more competitive to other countries. You don't win in the global economy by
giving everyone jobs, but by allowing people to create real jobs that compete
with other countries so that we as a population become wealthier.

------
mbrameld
Why do they exclude men in the military from their numbers?

~~~
maxerickson
They aren't really market participants when it comes to the labor force.

~~~
robotic
Why aren't they considered market participants?

~~~
maxerickson
Military law punishes them for quitting.

(Walking away from a civilian employment contract wouldn't normally result in
criminal charges)

------
joshuahedlund
This related article, also dated today, was linked at the bottom, and is a
longer read with more/different details and stories:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-
va...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-
male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html)

------
ctdonath
Where does minimum wage [objectively] fit in?

If an employer can't pay someone what a job is worth, either the job doesn't
get done or a machine is found to do it - leaving someone without the
opportunity for a job. Yes, it may not be a "living wage", but no wage is even
less desirable.

I've started using Taco Bell's remote ordering app. The clerk, seeing how I'd
ordered (not using his services), yesterday thanked me for making his job
easier. Couldn't help thinking that rather than happy, he should be scared:
with all the talk about pushing for $15/hr minimum wages, coupled with
automation of order-taking, he's facing prospects of no job instead of an easy
one.

I know minimum wage is meant to help, but it only contributes to increased
unemployment and inflation.

~~~
Malarkey73
[Objectively] in countries where a minimum wage has been introduced at a
higher rate than the US and is reviewed each year it has pushed up wages but
had little effect on employment.

e.g. see for instance this discussion
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-m...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/02/labour-
markets)

Further I can't really stand the crocodile tears of business who want to
employ workers at below living level wages. Their fake concern for worker is
nauseating.

If workers are having to top up wages with food stamps and government aid then
the business, management, and shareholders rather than the worker are
effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer.

And if you let companies lower wages to compete then the bad employers drive
out the good. Far better to make them compete on the product or service not
how badly they are willing to treat people.

~~~
jongraehl
1\. min-wage raises are so modest and so slowly phased-in (in the US) so to
not produce smoking-gun employment drops, and employers prepare in advance for
them, so sloppy underpowered studies don't show any large effect. marginal
effects are small and so you need a powerful study.

2\. do you want people who receive food stamps etc. and aren't hireable at
$8/hr to have any legal on-the-books employment options or not? either way
they're getting the food stamps.

3\. _I_ personally would rather see more Costcos+Trader Joes than Wal-
marts+McDonalds, so i want to believe your 'bad employers winning' unless we
force higher pay, but presumably people won't work for bad employers, so i
don't see where your forecast is coming from. anyway it seems a little cargo-
cult. you can't just start paying $20/hr instead of $8 and suddenly beat
Costco.

------
ottocoder
I know this isn't entirely on point but I couldn't help thinking of Mr.
Jaggers replying to Pip's question "what will I do?" with "Be a gentleman, of
course!" (Dickens reference) when I saw the title.

------
randomname2
"The decline of traditional pension plans and rising education levels, which
are associated with less physically demanding jobs, may both help explain why
the elderly are working longer."

Nice spin there, NYT.

~~~
innguest
Nice catch of the propaganda machine at work!

------
Doctor_Fegg
"Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead"

Surprised that "read HN" isn't listed as one of the "insteads". Which reminds
me, I really ought to do some work.

------
cJ0th
> To the extent that rising nonwork reflects more men graduating from school,
> that’s good news. Male high school graduation rates have risen 5 percentage
> points since 2000, and people with more education earn more and are less
> likely to be disabled later in life.

I am not positive this computes. People with more education might earn more
_now_ but that doesn't mean that their wages or the amount of jobs in their
domains won't go down when more people have a degree.

------
theorique
This article describes the growth of disability benefits and the way they are
dispensed: thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/09/how_to_be_mean_to_your_kids.html

------
blueskin_
De-paywalled: [https://archive.today/nOnpV](https://archive.today/nOnpV)

------
vidyesh
There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came
to concluding this topic.

The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage
of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of
every 100.

The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also
changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older
people end up creating more jobs.

The increase in unemployment rate : Yes, this contradicts with the above
mentioned increase in jobs point but this should also be a factor. This also
is affected by people not-from US who work in US.

The Shift in Generation : 14 years brings/builds a very different minded
person and this person might have a different approach to living.

The higher standard of living : This also is one of the reasons why older
people are still working and won't leave their jobs as their value is
appreciated, helps pay the debt and they could satisfy all their needs to live
a life of luxury(?) and fulfil all their ambitions.

~~~
coob
Middle East wars creating more disabled people.

~~~
vidyesh
And the article very precisely says

> _(People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these
> figures.)_

~~~
coob
Are veterans?

------
wirefloss
The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all.
Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".

------
manuelriel
None of this is new or surprising. It would be more interesting to apply this
kind of visualization to industries, % or part-time jobs, freelance workers,
etc.

------
npx
Are there any notable instances of unqualified founders beating the odds and
starting a successful business?

------
icantthinkofone
One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon
Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his
last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town
and never gets a reply.

If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.

~~~
TheBeardKing
Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?

~~~
icantthinkofone
I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the
kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants
to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.

~~~
humanrebar
I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't
gangbusters, but he could help us out with <grunt work that's piling up> if
he's willing to work for the right price."

My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm
underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a
number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and
reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a job with more responsibility.

Am I missing something? How else are we going to get all these unemployed men
retrained in another field, especially growing ones like tech?

~~~
john_b
If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time
employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance,
401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary
drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of
the cost of retaining someone.

If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the
ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company
for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one
of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become
popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these
types of hires are lower.

What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs
(health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated
with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the
burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where
the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in
them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing
the costs of such programs.

~~~
humanrebar
Retraining an unemployed philosophy major to run tests and route bug reports
seems feasible as well. There are armies of people that would kill to be a
barrista (with benefits) or an administrative assistant. Are you saying
Starbucks can find a way to make them more productive than they cost, but
engineering organizations can't?

------
ttty
>When more older people are working, they are earning money that they will
then spend in ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example.

But... older people earn 2-3 times more than a younger one (at, least in
Portugal). So for each old people there could be 2-3 younger working.

So if you lay off 100 old people you can get ~2500 younger people working. Of
course, I doubt that the productivity will be lower per person, but here you
are paid by how old are you (not, experience) * what you know

