USAT: More Americans leaving workforce

http://www.duggback.com/business/more_americans_leaving_workforce/ ^

[quesney]

the share of the population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000. Last year, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record. The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation’s social programs.

“What’s wrong with the economy may be speeding up trends that are already happening,” says Marc Goldwein, policy director of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan group favoring smaller deficits.

For example, job troubles appear to have slowed a trend of people working later in life, putting more pressure on Social Security, he says.

Another change: the bulk of those not working has shifted from children to adults.

In 2000, the nation had roughly the same number of children and non-working adults. Since then, the population of non-working adults has grown 27 million while the nation added just 3 million children under 18.

Other key findings:

•Men leave. Working-age men have been dropping out of the labor force for decades. The disappearance quickened when construction and manufacturing jobs vanished in the recession from December 2007 through June 2009. Until the 1960s, more than 80% of men worked.

•Women stay. The trend of women getting jobs offset the loss of working men until the late 1990s. The share of women holding jobs rose from 36% in 1960 to 57% in 1995, then leveled off. The rate was 56% in 2010.

[...]

“No matter how wealthy you are, you have a problem if half the population is not working and depending on those who are,” says John Goodman, president of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis. “Wherever you look, we’ve overpromised.”

[screaminsunshine]

If they don’t get a license the state has vast fleets of useless marine patrol to check your paperwork and in general harass boaters.

[kearnyirish2]

Yeah, I thought the “leaving the workforce” was a strange, pro-Obama slant to the headline, too.

[LibsRJerks]

Ha. I left his year, at least temporarily for a couple of years. Why work in a miserable stressful job, get socked in taxes, only to come home to face my stressed out husband and messy house? Now I stay home, take care of things, pay less in taxes, and it seems we have about the same amount of spending power as when I worked. My stress has abated significantly. I may be poorer, but I feel better.

Plus, it is a seriously nasty work environment out there — people are just jerks, and I really don’t want to spend my precious years trying to deal with them and have them tear down my good mood on a daily basis.

I am also lucky to have a wonderfully hard working spouse I can rely on.

[RipSawyer]

It cannot be saved!!!! I wish it could but the old system has collapsed already, all the hubbub is about the refusal to recognize that fact. It all reminds me of the opening episode of a long ago nightime soap opera, “Flamingo Road”. Morgan Fairchild played the daughter of a wealthy man on the skids and they were at a horse auction where Morgan insists that her father should buy a certain horse for her. He makes the winning bid of something like twenty five thousand and his wife looks at him with disdain and asks how he can do that when they are already so far in debt. He replies, “Honey, we owe so much already, what difference does another twenty five thousand make?”

That is America, the games will continue as long as the pretense can be maintained, when it finally becomes impossible to pretend any longer then chaos begins.

[RipSawyer]

Ah, but everyone will have a fantasy job, paying a fantasy six figure salary and buying fantasy mansions and eating fantasy ribeye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez24yjqRGLs

[Brown Deer]

No, what? Do you have a better explanation?

The basic concepts involved in identifying the employed and unemployed are quite simple:

• People with jobs are employed.
  
• People who are jobless, looking for jobs, and available for work are unemployed.
  
• People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.
  

To summarize, employed persons are:

• All persons who did any work for pay or profit during the survey week.
• All persons who did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a family-owned enterprise operated by someone in their household.
• All persons who were temporarily absent from their regular jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial dispute, or various personal reasons, whether or not they were paid for the time off.

Unemployed persons are:

• All persons who did not have a job at all during the survey reference week, made at least one specific active effort to find a job during the prior 4 weeks, and were available for work (unless temporarily ill).
• All persons who were not working and were waiting to be called back to a job from which they had been laid off (they need not be looking for work to be classified as unemployed).

In January of 2008, the population of those eligible for the labor force was reported at 232,616,000. Last month this number was 239,000,000 which was a gain of 6,384,000.

In January of 2008, the work force was reported at 154,060,000, but last month was only 153,406,000! So the work force has dropped over the past two years, while the working age population increased by over six million people?

[sarasmom]

Yeah, you will probably have to consider it.

You are already giving up 3% of your profit if your customer pays with a credit card, if you have not factored in that 3% before you quoted the price.
That rate is going to rise to 4%.
I always offer to pay by check, simply as a courtesy, to save my supplier the 3% credit card processing fee.
Banks are offering 1% “kickbacks” to large government agencies, to use credit cards for payments, instead of net 30 terms.
Pretty soon, smart people are going to demand a 4% payment discount for cash purchases.

If you are a large contractor, you generally don’t make margins greater than 3-5% in profit, on the “huge” bid contracts that keep your employees employed, and allow you to purchase supplies at steep discounts, so you can make a few more percentage points of profit on all your smaller contracts.

Say you bid on a specific project and were awarded it, for a customer you have worked with/for many years, who has a “net 30 day” account.
They call you on day 30, and tell you they are paying their $100,000.00 invoice(s) via a credit card... you just lost $3000.00 (soon to be $4000.00).
Legally, you can not refuse to accept their credit card.

Have a nice day!

[kearnyirish2]

My wife works part-time, with summers off (because our kids are out of school); it is less money, but they’re not being raised by strangers. The difference is not as big as some people may think; we feel it, but luckily can get by. I’ve got to put up with a lot at my job, but it’s worth it.