
The percentage of Americans who are employed has fallen from 61 to 51 - jbegley
https://www.axios.com/half-us-population-unemployed-341ba30c-777e-4ba2-bccf-d2274b2770f0.html
======
pphysch
Why do people focus on aggregate unemployment metrics so much? A $10/hr job
with no benefits is tremendously different than a $60K/yr job with health
care. The former is not a living wage. Yet both are just "jobs" \-- what does
that word even imply in 2020? Even worse are "job creation numbers", proudly
brought to you by Aunt Mary who works three minimum wage jobs.

Is "employing" XX% of your population in virtual indentured servitude supposed
to be something politicians are proud of?

~~~
rayiner
Someone with a full-time job making $10 an hour (1) makes about the same
minimum wage as France; (2) is either eligible for Medicaid or pays $67/month
for healthcare through an ACA exchange; (3) pays almost nothing in taxes. It’s
definitely a livable salary for a young person in a low cost of living area.
(Half of people who make under $10 an hour are 18-30.)

Where I live, an hour outside DC and maybe 30 minutes to Baltimore, you can
get a 2BR apartment in a _nice_ new building for $1,000 per month. Share that
with someone, and a person making $1,500 is spending the recommended 1/3 on
rent. $67/month for healthcare on an ACA silver plan, and that leaves
$900/month, which is totally doable for a single person, or better yet each
half of a young married couple. And frankly, around here you’d get $15/hour
just working checkout. In places that have a significant number of $10/hour
jobs, rent is something you spend a few hundred a month on. You can eat at a
sit down place for under $10.

~~~
taurath
An ACA silver plan means you have a $4500 deductible. You will NEVER go to a
doctor. You will also not have sick leave, and if you don't show up for your
randomly timed work shift you will be fired. Thats if you get hours in the
first place.

So you pay your $500 for rent. Add 150 for utilities. Add 200 for gas and 50
for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Thats 900 for
a roof and ability to pay for it.

Now you have $600 a month for food and literally any other expense. Say you
never eat out and use staples like rice and beans as the basis for every dish,
thats $250 a month (maybe you can squeeze out another $50, but one must have a
slight bit of slack for say, a single gallon of ice cream per month). $350 for
everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible.
Your sanity.

~~~
tigershark
Almost 4 litres of ice cream per month? Every month? And someone wonders why
there are so many type 2 diabetes cases...

~~~
jacobolus
1 gallon/month is 1 scoop of ice cream each on 5 or 6 days per week, or on
average about 12–15 grams of sugar per day. It’s about the same amount of
sugar you’d get from drinking one 12 oz can of soda every third day.

If it’s the only sugary treat someone is eating, that’s still well below
average for people in most industrialized countries. If combined with
soda/candy/cake/cookies/cocktails/... then probably not such a good idea.

------
sytelus
In broad terms, USA is largely funded by global economy. This is done by
setting US$ as master currency, so in effect, America's biggest export is
dollar that gets consumed by rest of the world. When Fed prints out $6T, the
inflation transfers to rest of the world and little to US. The ownership of
US$ allows Americans to buy expensive goods manufactured by labor and
materials in rest of the world by merely manufacturing currency as primary
export.

I think it is possible that in future, Americans don't have to work and rely
completely on their export of US$ as world currency. The global currency must
be protected military might and a constitution that allows for fairness,
justice and ability to challenge authority. This is necessary for the trust
and stability in global economics. The country owning the global currency
would also need to setup military restrictions so that other countries may not
be allowed to match military power. All this might look bad but it is truly an
economic service that is needed to be provided by _someone_. US citizens job
is then to protect constitution, military powers and the currency. For that
job, they get goods and services from rest of the world. As merely 5% of
population is engaged in providing this economic service, it is probably not
an inefficient either.

~~~
pphysch
> The global currency must be protected military might

At the current state of geopolitics, this is basically calling for WW3 in the
next decade. US economic hegemony is on super shaky ground right now.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I'd be curious what geopolitical framework/elements/theory of power you're
basing your analysis on.

~~~
pphysch
Thesis: US global power will continue to wane as long as the domestic
situation (socioeconomic, cultural, institutional) worsens and geopolitical
multipolarity is established by China. And that's okay, time's up! As long as
the US doesn't do something enormously stupid in retaliation.

It's not coming out of a textbook if that's what you're wondering.

------
irrational
My 18 year old son has been trying to get a job for 2 years, without success.
All of the jobs that used to go to high schoolers are now going to adults who
are working low end jobs to help make ends meet. And then the quarantine hit
making it even harder to find work.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Has he explored working holiday opportunities in other countries, perhaps
Australia or Europe? Not a solution to the employment situation in the US, but
perhaps an improved chance of success.

~~~
nine_zeros
> Has he explored working holiday opportunities in other countries, perhaps
> Australia or Europe? Not a solution to the employment situation in the US,
> but perhaps an improved chance of success.

Why are people downvoting this? Teenagers in EU and Australia routinely travel
around the world for jobs. Once they grow up, they become excellent hires at
"real" jobs because of skills gained at such jobs.

~~~
bojo
> Why are people downvoting this?

Probably due to the travel ban being imposed against people from the US by
those places right now.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Travel bans aren't going to last forever.

~~~
kiwidrew
The travel bans will last as long as it takes for the US to get their pandemic
under control, and given the current (lack of any) progress towards that
outcome "forever" might not be much of an exaggeration.

------
aahhahahaaa
I wish we were talking more about how to support the jobless long term rather
than focusing on the numbers as a signal of the apocalypse (yes, I'm being
hyperbolic). Seems like an inevitability we'll have to deal with one way or
another.

I'm a bit of a bumpkin so I'm not familiar with various labor theory and
whatnot... but in the long run we should maybe have more people working, but
working less overall.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
A world where most people don't do productive labor is going to require
multiple radical changes. We'll have to handle that eventually, but right this
second we just don't have the social bandwidth to enact any more radical
changes.

~~~
aahhahahaaa
Is it radical for the richest country in the world to make sure people who are
out of work don't get evicted when the extended pandemic benefits end this
month?

It seems with the current political climate nothing radical can really happen
at all, but there are pragmatic steps that can be taken to help ensure we can
keep people fed and in their homes.

~~~
ciarannolan
> America isn't the richest country in the world. It's a poor country with a
> lot of rich people.

------
baybal2
The digit may sound stunning, and shocking, but it's not really that bad with
a demographic profile of USA. USA is a relatively youthful nation.

[https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-
partic...](https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/labor-force-
participation-rate)

Countries with older, more experienced workforce, usually have higher
employment, and are less sensitive to shocks.

~~~
glofish
data at the link you posted claims that Slovakia had a 94% labor participation
in March 2020.

I find that very hard to believe.

~~~
tbabej
Data indeed is not reliable, growing up in that area, I can say Slovakia and
Czech Republic have similar demographics and employment rates, while occupy
very different places in the linked data source.

Here is a more reliable source from worldbank, claiming ~60% labor
participation rate [1].

[1]
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.NE.ZS?locat...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.NE.ZS?locations=SK)

------
hprotagonist
note that this counts minors, retirees, etc.

pre-covid, it was 61%, so we're down 10 points in 6 months.

Yikes.

~~~
MaximumYComb
61 to 51 is huge

~~~
glofish
even so the title is greatly misleading as it makes it sound as if half of the
population that would work cannot

~~~
zigzaggy
Exactly. I can't understand why people don't just say the thing it is,
especially a thing that's already bad. Wording it like this feels very
dishonest / clickbaity.

~~~
FabHK
> just say the thing it is

Well, 47.2% of the U.S. population does not have a job, and the headline was
"Almost half of the U.S. population does not have a job" \- what are you
objecting to?

(Note: that is the headline of the Axios article - I don't know what the old
headline of the HN submission was.)

This does not mean that the unemployment rate is 52.8% - and that is not what
the headline claims.

FWIW, all the main indicators show a massive spike:

* Employment-Population Ratio (discussed here) [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO)

* Labor Force Participation Rate [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART)

* Unemployment Rate [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE)

------
monksy
How is the economy even functioning at this point? We have half of the country
being unemployeed. I know that a lot of organizations are running on the bare
minimum.. but this is extreme.

~~~
thewarrior
That everyone needs to keep working to keep the economy going isn’t some law
of physics. If the people producing agree to keep producing everyone can get
what they need. Atleast in theory.

~~~
headsupernova
this is the important realization from this time. This whole thing is made up
- we can organize society around a model that isn't based on forcing people to
work a (many times useless) job in order to eat food and sleep somewhere.

~~~
thewarrior
You’d think that’s obvious. But even with this pandemic making it almost
crystal clear this seems too hard to accept for most people. Capitalism is
almost a religion at this point.

------
Priem19
Yet the stock market is having a field day, I don't get it.

~~~
blackrock
The Fed is printing money.

Err.. I mean, according to them, they are expanding the pool of money
available, by buying out the junk bonds issued by corporate America. The same
bonds from the cheap loans that they took out at super low interest rates, in
order to buy back their shares, thus increasing their stock value, and
enabling them to give millions of dollars in bonuses to their executives.
While everyone else, gets an unpaid furloughed vacation and unemployment.

~~~
zaroth
The Fed Reserve balance sheet is up about $2 trillion dollars due to COVID
policy.

The Treasury has also spent about $2 trillion on jobs programs. About 70% of
people on unemployment are currently getting _more_ money than they were
earning while working.

------
hirundo
Some fraction of this change is attributable to the $2 trillion CARES Act that
pays workers $600 per week, contingent on them not working. I assume that the
change would still be horrific if this effect is deducted, but that it isn't
insignificant.

~~~
slg
>the $2 trillion CARES Act that pays workers $600 per week, contingent on them
not _having a job available to them_.

FTFY. Your original language implied the choice to work was up to the
individual person. You can't stay on unemployment insurance if you were given
the option to return to work and declined. Many people believe that part of
the reason many governments were so quick to reopen in the US was because
opening businesses allowed people to be kicked off unemployment insurance if
they refused to return to work due to health concerns.

~~~
collegeburner
Of course there are jobs. They may not pay as much as they used to, and they
may not even be in one's chosen field, but both of my companies are hiring
full-time workers with benefits and all.

~~~
slg
What is the point of having any unemployment insurance system if no
consideration is made for what job a person had previously or is qualified to
do versus what is currently available? Someone is always hiring. Should no one
receive any benefits as long as there is an open job somewhere that they could
potentially fill?

~~~
collegeburner
> Should no one receive any benefits as long as there is an open job somewhere
> that they could potentially fill?

Yes? The point is to make sure people aren't starving, not to preserve their
ego and satisfy the "This isn't why I got a college degree" crowd. Obviously
there's a good bit of frictional unemployment, which is really what
unemployment is designed to handle. That may go up a bit during times of
economic stagnation or contraction, but unemployment isn't supposed to handle
the "I was making X dollars before and can't maintain my lifestyle if I take a
lower-paying job" sort of situation. In this sort of environment, most people
will experience a significant reduction in quality of life, and probably
should, as there are fewer goods and services being produced. I guess that
doesn't win votes, though, so the politicians are out here telling people they
shouldn't have to. And I'll get to have my retirement taken in taxes to pay
for it.

------
nostromo
Put another way, 1 out of 5 jobs disappeared overnight.

~~~
dragonwriter
10 out of 61 is 1 out of 6 (well, 6.1), not 1 out of 5. And it wasn't
overnight.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Six months is pretty "overnight" for such a change.

------
Markoff
how does it compare to other countries? I really hate articles which claim
some numbers without comparing with other countries and trend there

------
programmarchy
Here's a calculation to consider. Would it be more expensive to subsidize the
income of a $15/hr worker for a year, or treat them for a COVID infection?
I've heard treating COVID patients can cost up to $40K in resources.

~~~
lucaspm98
It might not be a good idea to put a dollar value on lives, but considering
<1%-5% of cases require hospitalization the cost of subsidizing lower income
workers is incredibly higher even at $40,000 a patient.

~~~
programmarchy
Wasn't trying to do that, but I see how my statement comes across that way.
With something like UBI calibrated between $1-2K/mo, a worker could make the
risk calculation themselves. Right now, low income workers don't have much of
a choice, so are being forced to risk their health. UBI gives them an out.

------
corporateslave5
Most high income jobs in this country are performed by foreigners. I have data
to prove this, scraped all of the top firms LinkedIn’s. The labor force in the
USA is way more hollow than this data even shows. It’s harrowing to see how
few American college graduates enter roles that have a bright future. I am
currently working on a website to expose the reality of American employment.

Other factor here is the fed printing money to inflate financial assets,
making the rich richer and driving up the housing market.

Ultra capitalist policies by the left and right to completely outsource
American jobs.

The effects of all of these have not been realized yet. But they will. We’re
15 years off from real crises when both the left and right middle class
populations realize they’ve been had

~~~
kickopotomus
> Most high income jobs in this country are performed by foreigners.

Citation? There are only about 3 million H1B visa holders in the US. The
remaining ~120 million workers are citizens or immigrants in non-specialized
work.

~~~
yeetawayhn
Commenter specified "high income jobs" of which only a small portion of the
~120 million qualifies.

~~~
kickopotomus
19% of US households are considered "high-income"[1]. H1B visas only account
for ~2.5% of the workforce.

[1]: [https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-
incom...](https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0912/which-income-class-
are-you.aspx)

------
djdule
When you say "Americans", do you refer to US, North America or both Americas
(North and South) ?

~~~
mmm_grayons
I'm pretty sure you know to what it refers and are just trying to make a
point/start an argument. "American" is the only demonym of which I'm aware for
a resident of the United States of America. Rarely (if ever) does someone
require a demonym for residents of two continents, and I don't think I've ever
heard someone use "American" to refer to a resident of "the Americas" outside
of an irate non-American.

~~~
FabHK
The article headline was more precise though ("Almost half of the U.S.
population does not have a job"), so here editorialising made the headline
worse in at least one respect.

~~~
mmm_grayons
The title was actually changed because a bunch of people thought it was
sensationalized and sounded too close to a 51% unemployment rate (which isn't,
"percentage of people without a job".) See here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23706562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23706562)

~~~
FabHK
Yes. The headline was changed for that reason, making it better in at least
one respect (namely less confusing for people that do not know the distinction
between unemployment rate and employment population ratio), and worse in at
least one respect (replacing the specific "U.S. population" with the less
precise "Americans"). As I said.

