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The Idle Army: America’s Unworking Men
The Wall Street Journal ^ | September 2, 2016 | Nicholas Eberstadt

Posted on 09/02/2016 9:47:52 AM PDT by CDB

This is arguably a crisis, but it is hardly ever discussed in the public square. Received wisdom holds that the U.S. is at or near “full employment.” Most readers have probably heard this, perhaps from the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, who said in a speech last week that “it is a remarkable, and perhaps underappreciated, achievement that the economy has returned to near-full employment in a relatively short time after the Great Recession.”

Near-full employment? In 2015 the work rate (the ratio of employment to population) for American males age 25 to 54 was 84.4%. That’s slightly lower than it had been in 1940, 86.4%, at the tail end of the Great Depression. Benchmarked against 1965, when American men were at genuine full employment, the “male jobs deficit” in 2015 would be nearly 10 million, even after taking into account an older population and more adults in college.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: laborforce; unemployment
Can't wait to read Eberstadt's forthcoming book.
1 posted on 09/02/2016 9:47:52 AM PDT by CDB
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To: CDB
The employment rate hasn't been this low since the dying days of the Carter Administration.
2 posted on 09/02/2016 9:56:36 AM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: CDB
Received wisdom holds that the U.S. is at or near “full employment.”

Anyone with half a brain has known for years that we aren't anywhere near "full employment."

3 posted on 09/02/2016 9:58:10 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: CDB

I joined their ranks 02May15.


5 posted on 09/02/2016 10:26:59 AM PDT by Original Lurker
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To: Opinionated Blowhard
"Anyone with half a brain has known for years that we aren't anywhere near "full employment." "

With all the diversity we have in government these days, that's probably a racist statement.

6 posted on 09/02/2016 10:33:22 AM PDT by blam (Jeff Sessions For President)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

No surprise, if you’re too lazy to even work to support yourself, that you don’t do anything else for anybody else, either.

One also has to wonder how much illegal immigration has contributed to this, by increasing competition for, and driving down wages for, the sort of labor jobs that these men might otherwise be doing.

But really, why would you want to work even a legal minimum-wage job when you can just sit on your ass and get a cheque? Some might think that people would see out work and self-reliance just out of a sense of self-respect, but these guys largely feel zero shame for drawing the dole. It the communities I grew up in, a man behaving like this would be considered a lazy layabout - a bum - and shunned. My grandfather was a hard-drinking alcoholic, but he worked all his life at the steel mill to support his family. Of course, that was back when there was still a steel mill to work at and make a decent wage.


7 posted on 09/02/2016 10:37:00 AM PDT by -YYZ- (Strong like bull, smart like tractor.)
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To: CDB

Great article. Thanks for posting the whole thing.

I think the author misses a critical point. Males, men in this society, are simply not valued as they once were. For decades now boys have been inculcated with the idea that they are of less value than girls.

Every grade school, every sitcom, every TV commercial subtlety and not so subtlety convey the adequately received message that boys and men are the problem and of less value to society than the mighty, and slightly oppressed, female.

I know first-hand that women are now receiving a lot of the top jobs and plum assignments as the feminization of this country marches forth with ever more deliberatness.


8 posted on 09/02/2016 10:52:46 AM PDT by Obadiah (For the left, truth must be discarded in favor of the narrative.)
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To: Obadiah

Yep, most workplaces are downright hostile to men nowadays. I had a female boss come in, and the first day, she called us all into a meeting and said “now that there’s a woman in charge, we’re going to start doing things the right way!” Stupid wench hadn’t even taken a few days to learn how we had been doing anything, just assumed it was all wrong because men had been managing it.

The female managers tend to hire mostly females and give them higher wages than male counterparts, and the female employees are not held to the same standards as men either. I really can’t blame any men for just dropping out in these type of conditions.


9 posted on 09/02/2016 11:45:25 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: -YYZ-

They are becoming cash only workers. No income taxes, no Obama care. Flying under the economic radar.


10 posted on 09/02/2016 12:05:02 PM PDT by MCF (If my home can't be my Castle, then it will be my Alamo.)
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To: Boogieman

I saw that happening in a fortune 100 hi tech company in about 1991.

It is easy for me to believe subjectively that there are more and more government jobs these days. Those jobs seem largely regulatory. For example, did the gardener cut the grass at 2.0” +/- 0.5”? If not, it could be a deviation worthy of a report to a superior in the government agency for corrective action. These jobs are ideal for females because they require no upper body strength— they require no physical strength at all, but they do require a large measure of social interaction and so therefore a larger measure of social skills.

meanwhile, the number of jobs involving physical strength and other physical movement are declining due to mechanization.

with more women than men in the workforce, along with government mandated affirmative action, women begin to move into management positions and many of those wreak havoc, at least ever 28 days or so. In my experience many of them are simply mean towards their male subordinates for emotional reasons, often seemingly associated with so called spurned women.


11 posted on 09/02/2016 7:24:18 PM PDT by SteveH
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