A segment of DU is very invested in painting a dystopian picture of the US

[Recursion]

And I get annoyed by it.

People seem to want to convince us that:
Unemployment is high
Vast numbers of workers have given up looking for jobs
Workers over 50 just can't find jobs ever
Wages haven't increased

When in fact
Unemployment is at 5.5%, lower than what was called "full employment" 20 years ago.
0.3% of the workforce has given up looking for work.
The unemployment rate for people over 50 is 3%, lower than any other age group
Inflation-adjusted wages at every quintile increased more between 1994 and 2014 than they did between 1974 and 1994

Why are people so interested in trying to make up ways to paint this situation as awful?

EDIT:U3 is 5.5, not 5.2. Sorry.

[snooper2]

1. because they are trying to prove who has more socialist cred

Maybe the WSWS needs to find somebody in their community who has the skills to build a forum LOL

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Interesting points.

My guess is that those numbers are half-truths that distort reality. For example, the U6 is probably a better indicator of real employment picture than is the official unemployment rate, but that doesn't account for other important things, like pay.

Perhaps we should take these topics, one at a time, and have an online "duel" of sorts.

[Fred Sanders]

7. That sounds a lot like what you get from the RW...deny the facts....deflect from the topic. Why?

Everything in the OP is true, and it is thanks to Obama, got all the blame for the poor economy he inherited from the cons, now gets none of the credit for avoiding an economic disaster and restoring the economy to health..I guess I answered my own question.

I remember.

Make an enemy of the good, wallow in the conflict....because that is what demanding perfection does.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

92. I do notice that some people want to redefine unemployment now that President Obama has lowered it.

eom

[Exultant Democracy]

100. Don't have a dog in this fight, but DU has talked about the poor way

we measure that data from almost day one if I can recall. It was true under Bush and we bitched about it then so it is true now. I don't think the POTUS is a victim of anything other than reality here. Of course he lowed unemployment, dramatically, but it don't change the fact that the numbers we count as unemployed are bullshit.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

105. Yes, without getting the weeds I realize the difference

Yes, without getting the weeds I realize the difference between real and official unemployment figures but it seems lots of folks prefer to focus on the former now that President Obama has dramatically decreased the latter.

I look at our current condition as well as our history as mixed.

[hifiguy]

179. +1

Lefties have been complaining about this for thirty years.

[randys1]

152. Exactly...Anybody who is part of that redefinition is no friend of mine, no liberal, nuh uh

[MoonRiver]

196. Dare I say, that sounds a lot like what Republicans would say.

[Exultant Democracy]

200. They said it under Bush every time we brought up the real unemployment rate.

"And you shall know them by their works."

Only one wing of the democratic party reliably acts like republicans, and that probably tells us everything we need to know about them, which is in some cases far more then they would even want to know about themselves.

[kenfrequed]

108. Well actually...

The unemployment numbers that we have used for decades under both republican and democratic administrations have been flawed. There really is no debate on the matter.

[Wilms]

8. Indeed. Look at my reply (#6) below.

We could start right there.

[Recursion]

11. I'm game (nt)

[MannyGoldstein]

54. OK. Draw!

Looking at the questions you raise, they're tricky for a host of reasons. But let's give it a shot. Start with unemployment? Any thoughts on the process we should use, e.g., you could start with a statement "People seem to want to convince us that unemployment is high, but unemployment is at 5.2%, lower than what was called "full employment" 20 years ago." then I can respond, then you can respond to my response, etc? Eh, but that will quickly get ugly because of the way DU does threading.

Thoughts?

[ConservativeDemocrat]

82. Sure, Manny, I'll draw

The problem with using U6 as the "real" rate of unemployment is twofold.

First and foremost, it's a way Republicans and Democratic-party-hating leftists, use as a double standard. Republicans are measured by U3, when the predictions of doom and gloom under Democratic leadership doesn't pan out, switch to U6 and pretend the numbers are just the same.

Second, on a more technical basis, calculating U6 of necessity involves opinion, and therefore can change due to shifting standards, despite no change in conditions. Who is "marginally attached" and "discourgaed" is difficult to quantify, and is subject to cultural trends. For example, labor participation (which Republicans/far-leftists now use as a sign that the Obama recovery isn't what it seems to be) went up dramatically in the 1950s, which we've still not recovered from.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[DanTex]

89. Paul Krugman disagrees with you, for one.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/the-case-for-a-better-u/

U3 and U6 are both valuable and useful. And calculating U3 also involves opinion, since it requires determining whether someone is "actively looking" for a job. The most "opinion-free" measure of unemployment is the employment/population ratio, which paints an even more negative picture than U6.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

134. "Actively looking" is a pretty hard measure

Have you been applying for jobs? Yes or No?

I mean obviously, economists do use U6 as a yardstick, so it has some value. The question is whether it has more political value than U3. And asking people whether or not they're happy with their job (which is part of the U6 measure) seems just too squishy for that.

Which is why this article you referenced isn't Krugman disagreeing with me. I don't see where he's advocating replacing the general unemployment measure of U6 with U3. He's just using U6 in a scatterplot.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[DanTex]

137. It's still a subjective measure, like U6 is. And this thread is not about political value,

it's about judging the current state of the economy. Which means looking at more than just U3, especially in situations like the current one where a lot of people have either stopped "actively" looking, or else have taken up part-time work instead.

[BainsBane]

230. But that has been the case for a long time

Not just recently. Real unemployment is always substantially higher than the official rate.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. Maybe because we live in areas of high unemployment or are unemployed ourselves?

I've been unemployed for basically all of Obama's time in office. 'Retrained', got an associates and bachelors in a new (hardto outsource) field, got excellent grades, great reviews from my teachers and clinical rotations, then got exactly one interview and not even a callback to tell me I hadn't been selected out of the hundreds of applications I've submitted over the years.

I'm not 'over 50' yet, but I can see it not too far ahead, and having been unemployed since I was 40 or so doesn't make me all that hopeful. We speak what we see. The 'recovery' passed a lot of us by.

[Recursion]

12. That's an interesting point

The economic growth has been very regionally unequal.

[sabrina 1]

60. Do you know what the unemployment rate is for young, African American males eg?

Some of us are not just concerned about our own circumstances, or judging the entire country from our own rosy situations.

I know people who lost their homes due to the corruption of Wall St during the mortgage crisis. Still waiting to be compensated for a lifetime of investment that was snatched from them by false means. It isn't going to happen. Only Wall St gamblers, crooks, liars and con artists responsible for those crimes, get bailed out so they can continue their lives of luxury AND their gambling habits. After all they know they are 'too big to fail'.

But those I know who lost everything are just little people, too small to bother about. And as far as unemployment, yes, you can SAY it is far better, but part time employment and/or people with degrees taking anything they can get, isn't exactly the American dream they thought they would be living when they spent all those years in college.

Statistics bother ME. Because they are not 'human', they just lump everything into a number.

[BeanMusical]

150. Yes, apparently some people are deprived of any empathy.

[frazzled]

31. You should probably be looking to your municipality or state, then

for answers, and not blaming this federal administration (which did not cause the recession and which has brought the unemployment rate nationally down to historic lows).

You should ask why your municipality is not making the improvements in job creation that so many other parts of the country have achieved. And perhaps you should consider a move. It could be that your training and skills are more in demand in another area. I know that's difficult, but many of us have moved for jobs. Here's a current list of unemployment figures by municipality:

http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

Finally, I think as informed liberal citizens we need to understand that our views of government should not be based solely on our own conditions and stories, which vary greatly for many reasons ... some of which are not a function of the government. We have to consider the health of the nation as a whole, the "common good": and the health of the nation is far better than it was 6 years ago.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

33. I have family reasons that prevent me from moving.

As long as my father is still alive, I'm not going anywhere. And, as a matter of fact, there are lots of job openings in my field locally. But there are also a ton of small colleges churning out new grads continuously, and, I'm guessing (because no one will ever tell me why my application doesn't lead to an interview) that they want energetic 21 year olds, rather than somewhat weathered 46 year olds. I've even offered to work as an unpaid 'intern' for up to a year simply to get experience, and found no interest.

[LibDemAlways]

86. My husband was laid off at age 59.

Within days he attended a job fair at a company in his field. The applicants were divided into two groups -- new college grads/younger workers and older men and women. The older workers were escorted into a room where they were told that only "less experienced" (read younger and cheaper) workers were being interviewed. The next six months brought nothing any more promising. He attended another job fair where busses pulled up disgorging H1-B candidates employers were salivating for the chance to hire. Being older, experienced, and a US citizen were all employment killers.

So with three years to go before any kind of Social Security benefits and a daughter about to start college, he was kicked to the curb. Not an uncommon event.

Finally, many months later and thanks to a former coworker, he landed a shitty job for which he is overqualified -- at a 40% pay cut. What those rosy statistics don't reflect is underemployment and part-time benefitless employment that have become the norm.

Good luck on your continuing search. I hope you find an employer who recognizes that your age is an asset. You are stable and way less likely to jump around than those new college grads looking to build their resumes. Oh, and I completely understand your family obligations. My mom is a healthy 92 and right down the street. I'm here as long as she is!

[marions ghost]

167. "underemployment and part-time benefit-less employment that have become the norm."

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank you.

[Efilroft Sul]

170. You and I are in the same boat, and I am 48.

I've applied to about 300 FT jobs and scores of more freelance gigs in the last 14 months, and the result here is a big fat zero. People can't tell me they aren't going for the younger, less expensive grads. Wish I could move, but family matters prevent that from happening.

[geek tragedy]

4. because all they want to do is complain.

not do anything to make anything better.

just complain, and then paint the picture as hopeless to excuse their own lack of action.

[tridim]

96. You just described my office cube mate.

He's also depressed, and will not get help because he doesn't like doctors telling him he is sick.

I don't imagine any of these people are getting off being negative all the time. It has to suck for them.

[haele]

160. Not quite true. Their lack of action may be because they aren't able to just pick up and move.

Or that they are older, or that they are average instead of exceptional, or that they are striving for a career instead of a job. Or that they value is no longer pertinent in most fields of work.

I just completed a BS in business and much of the work was on business strategies for survivability through cost and production management, including past strategies that no longer "work". The business culture for the most part has changed over the years, and not necessarily for the better; instead of business being the long-term provision of a required service or product in exchange for a measurement of wealth, business is all about the short-term provision of wealth to investors - focus on shareholders, rather than stakeholders. This is because "successful" business means cutting costs to increase profit, or using shortcuts to increase production and make the business more "attractive" to investors or buyers.

More and more business owners, seeing the increased competition with global markets will eventually kill their small company are not looking to pass the companies down to their children, they're looking to pass shares down to their children - so the kids don't have to lose everything and start over again - when they sell their smaller business to a larger, more global business. While small businesses are up, and most people are "hired" by a small business as either a direct employee or a contracted service, it's not as lucrative as it was for most small businesses and innovative start-ups that started up after FDR and the New Deal and were able to survive pretty much through the 1990's.

To be capable to be able to match one's career to one's talent and efforts is not the same as being able to work in one's career. Likewise, working is not the same as being able to sustain a budget that can support oneself or oneself and a family in a reasonably comfortable living.

My concern is that the nature of the current mixture of "Global" and Calvinist Capitalism (i.e., Greed is good, because God rewards the deserving chosen, no matter how much they steal or gamble with fate and other people's wellbeing) is killing the ability to work the way that the western world had in the past.
It's easy to say that the technical consultant in the 1990's was could command $100 -$400 an hour for his/her bachelor's degree in IT with a couple certifications (that still cost a couple thousand every three years to maintain) just because there weren't that many people in the field with his or her training at the time, and now, with more people in the field, s/he should be happy with $30 - $50 an hour (with benefits).
But you can't at the same time say "we don't have enough people to do the work" and hire more H1Bs to drive even that down to $22 an hour with few to no benefits, while experienced people are still out there - or offshore the work itself because with technology, most workers are fungible.
Unless your client has "face to face" needs, there is absolutely no reason for a good 50% of the "professional" workers - the R&D people, the thinkers, the tinkerers, the analysts, the administrators, or the managers - not to be offshored and just upload their findings to one or two mouthpieces that parrot back findings to some board for executive decisions if that is the cost "savings" needed to ensure that returns and profits maintain the expected "tracking" to keep interest in the company.

A trained Radiologist in Romania, South Africa, or India making the equivalent of $5 an hour can look at the same X-rays and CAT scans that a trained and certified Radiologist making $50 an hour in Omaha, NB or San Francisco, CA can and be able to make pretty much the same analysis - and if the hospital system is owned by an international investment company, well - guess what they may be looking at for cutting costs.
Likewise, one can't expect companies not to want to cut production costs by implementing technology changes to the work force. The Branch Office secretary pools of 10 to 20 "girls" and bullpen of 3 to 5 "technicians" of even three decades ago have been replaced by two administrative assistants, a contract for technical support (as needed) and a network server with workstations. That's 10 - 20 careers for people with average talents and energy - not just jobs - gone, never to return. In a large city, those people will be competing against the 30 to 50 other Branch Office secretary pools and bullpens for a couple dozen positions in two or three tech support companies, or at Kelly Services or ManTech/Apple1/Day Labor. Or they need to "retrain" for existing average skill service jobs (shipping/logistics, retail, medical support, construction/electrician/HVAC/plumbing) and compete against the employees at those jobs along with all the high school grads or employees in other downsizing sectors who are being told that "these are the jobs of the future".

While one can talk all one wants about "Cars and Buggy Whip makers", the analogy is not the same. When Cars replaced the horse and carriage, there was a new product that the workers could transition to - a mechanic is a mechanic, a skilled trades worker is still a skilled trades worker, and cars actually had more basic fiddly parts that the carriages did.
As manufacturing was replacing the horse with a combustion engine, transmission, and differential system, and that in itself actually required more skilled and trained workers to produce a product. And that in itself could command higher wages.

Not the same now-a-days.

So yes, I can see why people would be so down on the employment; it's not just the numbers now, it's the numbers one can see in the future if the nature of what it means to work is not addressed soon. No one wants to live in a plantation economy, where a fewer and fewer people are privileged enough to purchase the means of survival in comfort and those people will be the ones dictating the actions of the few they would choose to allow to participate in that survival by working for them - and for how long those few will be able to work. Innovation and talent will be ignored unless a patron could be found.

The rest of us would be left scrambling for left-over scraps, no matter how skilled, hard-working, talented, articulate, or otherwise "good" we are. And hope that one day, one of "the gracious few" would take notice of at least a couple of us to lift out of the mass of "common" consumers competing for enough work to keep us warm, dry, fed, out of too much debt, and entertained enough to dream that one day we, too, could be in a situation that we don't have to constantly worry about our future and our family's future.

I, for one, don't want to go back to a anti-bellum culture of work, where workforce is considered a fungible cost in the pursuit of profits, or is on contract at the shareholder's pleasure. But unfortunately, with technology and globalization, there seems to be enough people with money who want to go back to that era - and the power of Money seems to be in the driver seat when it comes to Global economic strategies.

Haele

[JDPriestly]

226. Great post. Good read. Thanks.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Dystopian

Sorry, I'm a pedant!

I live in a region with very high income inequality and people are being evicted, or forced out by draconian rent increases of hundreds of dollars.

It's better than the Great Recession, but we are still feeling the after-effects here in vulnerable populations.

[Recursion]

10. D'oh

Thank you.

[JDPriestly]

228. Homeless people don't count, and we have many of them.

Los Angeles is considering ordinances that will allow the police to confiscate the meager possessions of the homeless.

I personally have a friend who is now living in a car. The homeless problem began sometime before 1985. I was out of the country, returned in 1985 and discovered homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks at my bus stop in the early morning hours.

We still have many, many homeless and people who rely on government aid just to survive.

[Wilms]

6. Inflation-adjusted wages 1967-2013

What am I missing here?



http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/Household-Income-Distribution.php

[Recursion]

9. That's the same chart I used EDIT sorry you posted incomes

(Very slightly) higher growth at all quintiles in the past 20 years than the 20 years before that.

EDIT: that's household incomes, which are flatter than hourly wages.

[MineralMan]

13. Indeed. It's an attempt at something, but not something I really understand completely.

There are disadvantaged people in the United States. With a population over 300 million, that means that there are lots of disadvantaged people. Nothing new in that.

As you note, the unemployment rate for the over 50 sector is lower than the national average. In some employment sectors, it's worse than that, of course.

There is a motive in trying to depict our society so negatively.

[edhopper]

14. Read some of the replies in this thread

see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026877702

As for wages, depends on what percent you are part of.
Devil in the details

[img][/img]

[LWolf]

15. Maybe because

some of us haven't experienced any economic recovery, and are still living IN an awful situation every day?

[Recursion]

18. I take you and Erich's point: some regions haven't shared in the growth

Which is why I think TAA might be better as relocation assistance than anything else...

[treestar]

38. Wouldn't you get some optimism out of the statistics presented?

Rather that insist it must not be that way?

[LWolf]

47. Here are some things that would engender optimism:

1. A surge in union membership and union representation for America's workers.
2. A living wage.
3. Health care as a right, and a universal not-for-profit health care plan, 100% free at point of service funded by taxes.
4. Universal fully public, and fully publicly funded, free at point of service education, pre-school through trade school or university.
5. Trade policies based on rigorous labor and environmental standards.
6. Corporations paying their fare share of taxes.


The statistics presented don't represent progress on those fronts, and don't offer up the economic safety nets necessary for all to prosper. They don't represent the experience of the large number of people who have been downsized, outsourced, and left behind.

[treestar]

57. Then you could never be optimistic at any time to date

Since that situation has never existed.

[Human101948]

117. Much of that situation does exist, just not in the USA...

Beating the drum and saying USA is number one can't obscure the fact that this country is woefully behind many other developed nations in the benefits that citizens get from their government...

German has strong unions that sit on corporate boards.

Sweden has free college education.

France has national healthcare.

et cetera

Oh but they are a mess and they can't compete with our wonderful free market system!

Actually, Sweden for example has a high GDP per capita than the mighty USA.

Perhaps the reason people complain is that they know that they are being lied to day in and day out for the benefit of the one percenters.

[treestar]

216. So there is no reason to be optimistic

Even if our economic numbers are good?

[Human101948]

218. Good for who?

Certainly good for the one percenters and a small slice of the upper middle class who are their lieutenants, but most Americans are on a slippery slope to Third World worker status. And that is, if you haven't noticed, the intent of the one percenters.

[LWolf]

141. Hope for progress on those fronts

used to engender optimism.

Not for a long time, though, since that hope has been in decline since fucking Ronald Reagan, and the Democratic response to him.

Progress. Moving in the right direction. That's all it takes. Moving backwards more slowly just doesn't do it.

[LondonReign2]

130. It is a little hard to read on the chart with certaintly, but haven't

real wages been DOWN in all quintiles since 1999? And if this reflects Household Income, even those numbers include a greater number of two-earner households due to necessity.

[cascadiance]

16. I think that you don't understand that many of us are still screwed with today's "jobs"...

Last edited Wed Jun 24, 2015, 12:06 PM - Edit history (1)

When you have people still making less money than they did 15-20 years ago for decent permanent jobs they had then.

That in today's economy many have to settle for short term contract jobs that make it harder for people to build expertise up in certain types of technologies, etc. when they have to switch so often. Many people's savings have been wiped out by foreclosures, being unemployed, and their salaries are still in the toilet where they will hardly ever catch up on paying off their debts that they've accumulated, and they still will wind up paying off 10% penalties (that rich people don't really have to pay!) to take early distributions on their retirement funds to make ends meet. Some of us who were unemployed TWICE during the year in previous years miss out on one of those means to avoid 10% penalties when we weren't unemployed for 3 straight months instead of two different occasions for less than 3 months each.

And we have things like health insurance adjusted these days to increase the amount of deductibles that we have to pay instead of having reasonable coverage of larger medical expenses. I have to find a bunch of money this week to pay completely out of pocket to do some sleep apnea tests that by the way is an ailment that killed a DUer here a week ago or so! Had I had health insurance for some time, some earlier medical expenses would have used up that deductible instead of just being applied to the older plan.

I also can't get a newer 401k as a contractor to roll over my older 401k so that I can qualify for one of those exceptions that would let me avoid the 10% penalty tax if I needed more money next year to pay off some of the added tax and penalties for withdrawals I had this year.

And 1994 was about the time where we had another economic dip where people's wages would have been a bit lower then, which would account for greater rise between then and now and less increase between 1974 and then. You can cherry pick those years to provide a "story", but you can't change the fact that many people are hurting more than they did in earlier times, no matter how many statistics and message spin meisters you might have.

[virtualobserver]

66. exactly

positions that I held 8 -15 years ago, are now paying 30%-40% less....with the same prosperous companies. Rents are more than double what they were.

Gas is much higher.

The unemployment rate in MY state is "actually" only 4.2%

Fortunately I own my home, but working and renting today....I wouldn't want to try it.

Obama is to be credited for saving us from the total destruction that would have occurred under Romney, or especially McCain .

If things were so "good", we would not have had a Zero interest-rate policy since late 2008.

[WillyT]

17. How Much Money Do You Make ???

What do you have in the way of savings, assets, stocks & bonds...

Do you own your own home...

Do you have children...

If so... are you paying for their college education...

How many vacations do you take every year...

Do you have decent health insurance...

How is your retirement shaping up...

How often do you dine out, go to the movies, enjoy the theater...

I do not expect, nor want, the answer to any of these, cause it's none of my friggin business, BUT...

You put the questions I asked to most Americans, and you would find out why they feel the dystopia.

[azmom]

70. What's a vacation?

Does chipotle count as dining out?

Savings? LOL

[WillyT]

88. My Point Exactly...

[Recursion]

22. Well that second chart is simply a straight up lie

U3 is 5.2%, and U4 (which is U3 plus dropouts) is 5.7%, per BLS.

The labor force rate is from people retiring; I sure as hell hope that keeps going down as the boomers age

the third chart shows young worker employment has only just now fully recovered from the 2008 crash. Thanks Obama!

[Divernan]

39. Duh! YOU provided NO links in your OP's "factual claims:

Would you mind? What are your sources, WITH links to same.

[AZ Progressive]

55. Don't be trying to explain things so simply

About the labor force participation rate:

Aging baby boomers, those Americans born between 1946 and 1964, account for approximately half of the drop in the labor force participation rate since 2007, according to a report released Thursday from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The remaining decline stems from “cyclical factors” fairly typical of historic economic recessions and more difficult-to-explain “residual factors” from the crisis.

- http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/17/baby-boomers-are-a-big-part-of-labor-participation-rate-decline

But do you think those boomers were ready to retire or were forced to retire because of lack of work opportunities? The economy has especially been harsh on the over 50 and on young adults just entering the labor market.


Also, The recovery has been lousy especially given that the economy is cyclical and we are due for a recession within the next few years (at least according to the economic history for 150 or so years of this country) with quite a few pointing towards 2016, and that surely might seriously reverse the gains already made. Since the markets have been deregulated, we can look to how the economy was before the 1930's (when markets were regulated), and it was a boom and bust economy with many devastating recessions.

One example showing this is this chart showing the DJIA growth, and while the magnitude of recessions isn't easily comparable because of the uneven chart scale, look at all the recessions highlighted just before the great depression, before the markets were regulated.

[hifiguy]

181. Believe it or not your charts got hidden.

What the fuck is happening to DU?

Whoever alerted on that should be tombstoned NOW, So should the jurors who voted to hide it.

[truebrit71]

183. That is INSANE!!!

Now fucking CHARTS are getting hidden?


WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON HERE????

[kath]

185. Exactly, they should be tombstoned. There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with AZ's post.

How can the administrators be made aware of this utter travesty?

What the fuckity fuck is going on here?

[Warren Stupidity]

192. Really. What sort of bullshit hide was that?

[ProfessorGAC]

217. What Warren Said!

And what were the jury members thinking. I've been on a lot of juries and this was a slam dunk "leave it".

[Prism]

194. *points down thread*

Think we spotted the alerter.

[TM99]

202. WTF?!

Truth now gets a hide at DU?

Down the rabbit hole we go where up is down and lies are truth.

[hifiguy]

204. Up is Down

Green is Blue
War is Peace
Madness is Truth.

Kafka would be proud.

Either that or truth has now taken on a quantum quality here.

[joshcryer]

215. Shitty hide, anyone with results? (Oh, LegalInsurrction)

I think the graphs are being misrepresented (a lot of boomers are retiring, it can't be helped), but I think that was undeserving of a hide.

edit: LegalInsurrction is a pretty shitty site, still... I am not sure I would've agreed with that hide.

[eridani]

233. Retired and taking early Social Security instead of becoming homeless n/t

[joshcryer]

235. The myth of early retirement

The decline in work among men in their 40s and 50s raises concerns about a lack of jobs for less-educated older male workers, but this is a separate issue from Social Security. A focus on the average retirement age and labor force participation at the end of people’s working lives often lends support to policies that would extend working lives into old age, when it might be wiser to focus on increasing labor force participation at younger ages. Even though work effort for the population overall has increased, there is still room for improvement. For example, disability rates have increased due to many factors, including the impact of a weak job market on workers in poor health and the decline in health insurance coverage. Raising the Social Security and Medicare eligibility ages would exacerbate this trend, but expansionary macroeconomic policies and other job-creation measures would alleviate it. Such policies would also help middle-aged men without college degrees, teenagers, and others who are more likely to drop out of the workforce when jobs are scarce.

The focus on the average retirement age is a distraction from the more important question of how much Americans work over the course of their entire working lives. The broader question of whether Social Security’s projected shortfall is due to a growing imbalance between work and leisure is addressed at greater length in a longer EPI briefing paper (Morrissey 2011). However, as long as people pay attention to these statistics and draw policy prescriptions from them, they should be as accurate as possible.

http://www.epi.org/publication/myth-early-retirement/

Claiming Social Security at age 66 has recently surged in popularity, due to the increase in the full retirement age to 66 for everyone born between 1943 and 1954. Some 19 percent of men and 13 percent of women born in 1943 and 1944 signed up at age 66, compared to about 1 percent among earlier groups of retirees. "It's striking how many people sign up in the month at which they reach the full retirement age," Johnson says. "The fact that the government has said that 66 and 0 months is the retirement age really seems to resonate with people. The government, just by how they frame the issue, can really induce people's retirement ages."

http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2013/09/09/the-most-popular-ages-to-claim-social-security

[eridani]

236. Nice comfortsplaining for the people who had to sign up at 62

I am getting so fucking sick of the smug well-off on this board.

[joshcryer]

237. Please.

My mom is on SSI. Stay at home mother, never worked, two degrees, 70 years old. Lowest poverty bracket.

Nice buzzwords and trying to box me in with a totally dishonest smear.

[laundry_queen]

225. Without a doubt that is the dumbest hide I've ever seen on DU. nt

[RiverLover]

240. Insanity is right!!! How the hell could factual charts get a hide?????

WTH?

[nilesobek]

193. I was gonna disagree with the OP

and read your stats. I cannot believe this hide.

[Quackers]

232. That was a BS hide.

I'd love to see the results of the jury.

[jtuck004]

103. Wow. Talk about straight up lies. 35% unemployment in black communities because every one retired?

Higher unemployment among 35-50, the recovery brought them a boatload of fucking cash? Seems the above person isn't the one spewing falsehoods.

You're excuse factory must be running overtime.

It hasn't recovered, people can barely pay the fucking rent, I guess if in your world everyone except the bank$ter/donors lives in the dirt and eats shit, as long as it is 5.5% of them, everything is ok?

Perhaps they can serve the kids who need food stamps to get through the month your words, since their parents don't have jobs to buy their food.

It's answers like this which help the opposing party in every election.

All one has to do is look around to see the pain - except there are those for whom other's pain is inconsequential. Message received.

Not even worth reading any more of your excuses or lies.

Why middle class can't afford rents

A decent, safe and affordable home is something all Americans need to thrive. While the lowest-income households continue to lack access to affordable rental homes, increasingly, middle-income households are also shut out.

A new analysis by Zillow finds that the typical renter can no longer afford the median rent in 90 cities across the United States. Many Americans are severely cost-burdened: 4 million working renter households pay more than half of pre-tax income on rent.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/22/opinion/hickey-affordable-housing/index.html
From your post "...now fully recovered from the 2008 crash. Thanks Obama!"

Yeah.

You can probably get this one hidden too. Too bad for you that you can't hide all the hungry kids and desperate parents you wan to paper over.

[geek tragedy]

59. why are you citing rightwing Republican blogs in your attempts to attack

President Obama's economic record--the enemy of your enemy is your friend?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

20. I've been working the last 5 years from home managing an industrial supply website. I'm 50...

and have decided that I'm tired of my current job. It was great, work from home, no working in weather extremes in construction, work at my convenience. But it's a very isolating job where there is little to no interaction with people or with life outside my four walls.

I wanted to return to my trade, which is a construction trade. I was concerned about agism, especially in a trade that is very demanding and requires great physical demands. I have found that my concern was unfounded as I prepare to return to my former 25-year career.

[Go Vols]

110. Ironworker?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

155. Hi Go Vols, please check your DU mail. nt

[pennylane100]

21. The picture as a whole has definitely improved,

however, there are many places still devastated by the shipment of well paying jobs in many working class communities. Also, the lower unemployment rates do not tell the true picture. Yes, more people are now working, but many of them are minimum wage jobs that do not provide any benefits.

Companies like Walmart that employs hundreds of thousands of jobs, pay just above the minimum wage and keep many of their employees in part time positions that do not get benefits. They get huge tax breaks and subsidies to open new stores and then the government pays to subsidize the standard of living for their employees through food stamps, medical and housing assistance programs. Not to mention the billions of dollars in profit they get to store, tax free, in offshore banks.

Yes, we can use statistics to show that we have improved the overall picture but that does not take into account how that picture varies from place to place. The citizens of Downtown Detroit and Cleveland live a very different life than the citizens of San Francisco and Boston. The only bright spot in this picture is now we have the ACA, and we may lose large parts of that if either the Supreme Court or the republican run government take it away.

[Recursion]

24. About 1% of the workforce earns the minimum wage

So no, there aren't a lot of people in the situation you described.

But, yeah, I agree the rust belt is a worse and worse place to live every year. Not everybody gets to live in their home town; I didn't, because there weren't many jobs there.

[frazzled]

36. The rust belt isn't in that bad of shape for employment

Look at this chart. The worst municipalities for unemployment (over 8%) are almost all in California, with a few in New Jersey. Compare that to Cleveland, OH, which has an unemployment rate of 5.1%.

http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

[Recursion]

52. Good point (nt)

[Divernan]

41. See, there's this thing called LINKS. Without them, ZERO credibility!

Are you pulling your claims out of thin air? Inquiring minds want to know.

[pennylane100]

76. I think a true inquiring mind would already know,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/12/why-americas-middle-class-is-lost/
http://business.time.com/2013/03/25/marxs-revenge-how-class-struggle-is-shaping-the-world/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/23/734781/middle-class-worst-decade/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/28/poverty-unemployment-rates_n_3666594.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/opinion/sunday/ross-douthat-for-poorer-and-richer.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/18/us-usa-obama-economy-idUSKBN0KR0HD20150118
http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/05/news/economy/middle-class-wages/
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/31/3420987/college-degree-minimum-wage/

[LongTomH]

85. Thanks for the links

Why not post excerpts from all articles in Good Reads?

[pennylane100]

87. I have to get ready for a long dentist visit,

takes all my energy to force myself to go.

[Bradical79]

84. I think I know where that number comes from (accurate and misleading)

Google brings up a result from "The National Review" saying 1.1%. This is the number of people making the federal minimum wage exactly of $7.25/hour. If we include people making less than the Federal minimum wage the number jumps to over 4%. It's also misleading in that around half the states have a minimum wage at least a bit higher. So for example, in Arkansas where minimum wage workers are living large getting $7.50/hour, they would not be included in that total.

Obviously, this is why right wing websites like The National Review use this much lower number to support their anti-Democrst propaganda. Building lies on a technically accurate number is a lot more effective.

[cascadiance]

90. And with how LOW the minimum wage is these days, that isn't saying much!

Some employers still could be paying just a little above minimum wage, and people would still be living in poverty on those "non-minimum wage" jobs.

It is not whether they are on "minimum wage" that should be the measure. It is what is their salary and what is that compared to the cost of living, and how has that shifted over time versus a decade or two ago. People's wages that aren't in the upper 1% of earners have been flat or actually have gone down.

In the past, people used to expect their wages to rise to follow the trends of productivity stats. They don't do that anymore. The only category of people these days that benefit at all from higher salaries of industry productivity gains are the very wealthy segments. A healthy economy pays its average workers the way the left of this graph shows in earlier times. The right of the graph shows how the wealthy have in effect STOLEN the wages of those that are being paid less than them, just because THEY CAN, when they are the ones in many situations how the profits are divided up in salaries to different parts of the companies they manage.



That is why we have a pay ratio of execs vs. the average worker so much higher than the 20/1 to 30/1 ratios we used to have in 1980 and earlier. That ratio is magnitudes higher today.

[hifiguy]

184. The scum at the top has taken virtually every penny

that has resulted from higher productivity. Can't be seen at the club in last year's Benz, can we, Thurston?

[GummyBearz]

23. Yea

And every dictator in the world gets 99% popular vote every election.. wonder why? Maybe governments report self serving numbers???? No way.. that can't be!

[whatthehey]

104. So your theory is

That the thousands of people who work for the BLS and who span the political gamut from left to right are engaging in a perfectly secret, not a breathed word, years long conspiracy to make Obama look good, that they only started after making him look bad with rising unemployment for the first half of his tenure; that they are simply going through the motions collecting the same data, doing the same interviews, and generating the same legally mandated reports, the exact same way they did under Clinton and the moron, using the same algorithms; that they are just publishing made up numbers at the end of the month, with absolutely nobody but frothing tinfoil hatters on the far right and the far left suspecting a thing? No Fox or Drudge exposes? No Trump investigative teams, no ACORNish stings of BLS analysts or Snowdenic whistleblowing from within?

Really?

There was this guy from Ockham once....

[GummyBearz]

144. All it takes is some simple logic

The BLS does not pull a number out of a hat... they have equations to calculate every number they report. The problem is why are there multiple ways to calculate unemployment? Why are the multiple ways to calculate inflation? The problem is why is the best number from all the equations always reported?

This has NOTHING to do with obama. This has been the same for reagan, bush, clinton, bush2, and obama. Go back far enough and the equations they use change. Do a little homework and critical thinking before you reply.

I'll give you a quick equation for unemployment: number_of_working_age_people_without_job/total_number_of_working_age_people.

The fact that this equation is not used should be a hint they are fudging numbers

[NCTraveler]

25. Here it is Recursion.

With a complete lack in fundamental change to the economy, it is starting to absolutely rock. The people stating the things you say are talking about their utopian view after fundamental change. If a good segment of society doesn't keep that rhetoric going, the fear is that there will be no talk at all of fundamental change. I really am fine with that, even the dishonest misrepresentation of numbers. It similar to NAFTA. Overall it appears to be a very small net gain for the US in the long run. Isolationist cannot admit that and must fight the numbers and facts at every turn. They use cherry picked data to make points. Yet the whole picture tells a different story. Economies change and sectors grow and shrink. It I easy to go to micro economic level data to make a flawed macro economic point.

The wealth gap needs to change. That change must be fundamental. The current conversations abut sliding the tax code and similar type onesies aren't the change that is needed.

[Recursion]

26. The wealth gap should absolutely be our top priority

And I think people are really charging the wrong hills on that here.

[NCTraveler]

32. Agree overall.

"And I think people are really charging the wrong hills on that here."

I agree with that statement so much. I am also guilty of it.

"The wealth gap should absolutely be our top priority"

It must be a part of the priority. People such as myself want fundamental change. That means not focusing on one single aspect. Although the wealth gap is a blend of many aspects. That is why it is so important to deal with. The reason it exists isn't simply one reason. Still, addressing those alone doesn't rise to the level of change we need. And I am still talking regulated capitalism. Currently, that is my preferred method.

[closeupready]

118. If you think that, then you have changed your mind

since last year when you posted that thread in which you stated that you didn't care about the wealth gap.

Just to be clear, is that in fact a change of heart on your part? If so, then I'll give you credit for that recognition of the harm which wealth inequality does to a society.

[Recursion]

121. I've stated the wage level is more important than the wealth gap

That's still true; I wouldn't want a wealth gap reduction that lowered real wages.

[RiverLover]

27. Yep, everything is just peachy.

Chart: What's the real unemployment rate?

Older Workers Stay Unemployed Much Longer Than Younger Ones, Study Says

Wages Have Fallen for Almost Everyone This Year (2014)

More Than One In 10 American Workers Unemployed Or Underemployed

Your post brought this to mind~

[truebrit71]

49. Nice graphic...

Sums it up all rather nicely...

[hifiguy]

187. I am SO saving that one for further use.

[SheilaT]

28. The one that annoys me the most

is the claim that absolutely no one over the age of 50, or is it 40? can possibly get a job.

I recognize that it can be pretty tricky in certain fields, but I've gotten four jobs after the age of 60, plus I did several temp stints, and I'm not even counting the two I got fired from. Yeah, they were all entry level, but it still was possible to get a job.

[RadiationTherapy]

29. Wealthsplaining happens when those whose economic condition is more fortunate explain to

people whose situations are less economically fortunate why the less fortunate are wrong.

They usually don't cite their claims.

[Divernan]

44. As I've repeatedly pointed out to Recursion: Show us your cites!

[Rex]

136. Why would a known disruptor do that?

Then they could not stir the pot all day long, I LOVE the fact that they admit to getting annoyed by us...the truth must be something the OP cannot just ignore...and it is annoying him/her.

Awww...how sad, the concern troll is getting annoyed at the truth of the state of the nation.

Won't someone feel sorry for them?

[raccoon]

30. What planet are you living on? I work in a state government job and recent wage increases, if any,

been like 1.5%.

Before that, I worked temporary part-time for the state, for years and years. Rarely got wage increases then too.

"Wages haven't increased " --that's definitely been my experience for years--also the experience of most of my friends and relatives.

[Rex]

140. The OP gets recs from people that have no idea what real life is like in America.

Funny watching all these OPs from people that don't live in America!

[raccoon]

159. English must not be your first language, smartass.

Funny watching all these OPs from people

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

201. Why are you attacking Rex?

He was talking about Recursion, not you.

[rbnyc]

175. Im getting a 3% raise this year..

...and an 18.6% increase in my health insurance premium and a 20% increase in the cost of my son's after school program.

So I will actually be making less money. Woo-Hoo!

BTW, I have increased revenue in my department by 23% this year.

(But, I could get a better job if I were willing to commute 3-4 hours each day.)

[randys1]

176. And none of that is Obama's fault, in fact, without him you and I and many others

probably have it way worse.

Corporations by definition are such bad entitles that we should outlaw them.

[rbnyc]

177. it's no single person's fault...

I think we get too hung up on defending and attacking individuals.

But public policy does make a difference. And our current system is, to put it as mildly as possible, inefficient at creating and implementing policy that does broad social good, and efficient at creating public policy that delivers wealth to entrenched interests.

That doesn't mean that there aren't some good things that have happened, and it doesn't mean that there aren't some terrible things that have happened. That doesn't mean that the president hasn't been obstructed to an obscene degree by toxic political forces, and it doesn't mean that Obama hasn't collided with toxic political forces in creating damaging policy.

We are constantly being fed a very simplistic way of seeing things. I just don't think it's helpful.

[DanTex]

34. While I agree about the doom-and gloom stuff, you are being overly rosy. For example:

Very little growth in median income despite large gains in GDP:


Broad under-and-unemployment highest since 90s.


Employment/population ratio way down.


Income inequality way up.

[Recursion]

48. Thank you

Finally, someone using numbers.

I agree under employment is a huge problem, and is probably why rising wages have still yielded flat incomes.

The employment:population ratio going down strikes me as a good thing, given our aging population, since it means people are retiring.

The GINI has definitely gotten worse. I think that's a decent trade for the higher employment and wage level, but I get that many don't think so.

[DanTex]

56. Like I said, I agree with you about the doom-and-gloom.

Inequality and the fact that GDP and productivity are going up but wages are stagnating is a huge problem. It's not a new thing, though, it's a decades-long trend.

You might be right about employment/population ratio, although I'd feel a little better about it if it hadn't suddenly tanked with the financial crisis and then not recovered at all. This doesn't seem like the gradual process of people getting older and retiring. Although maybe the financial crisis just caused people who were about to retire anyway to retire early.

[DanTex]

75. So FRED doesn't do a completely age-adjusted pop/employment ratio.

But if you look only at ages 25-54, it's still down quite a bit: 3% below the pre-crisis peak and almost 5% below the 2000 peak. Though there is more of a recovery than for the entire population.

[Andy823]

35. Good question

Simple answer is they are not really who they claim to be. They have played the con job here, gathered a following and never address the question asked by others about "WHY" they are spreading right wing talking points on DU. I think it's the old divide and conquer tactic, and they like to keep things stirred up, keep the posters mad at each other, and sit back and marvel at their accomplishment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. I did not know the U.S. bureau of the census

was a right wing outfit. See above your post.

[Rex]

164. That was pure projection by said poster.

It is amazing how they don't yet notice how obvious it is to the 99% of us here on DU.

[nadinbrzezinski]

168. I know, but when they even accuse government agencies

it is kind of funny at that point.

[Rex]

169. I agree, at this point in time all I can do is laugh at them.

I gave up ever trying to have a real convseration, what would be the point? They are not here for discussion.

[lumberjack_jeff]

37. employment to population ratio

As you well know, "unemployment rate" doesn't capture the "vast numbers of workers who have given up looking for jobs"

[Recursion]

43. 0.5% have given up

The employment to worker ratio drop is because Boomers are retiring.

[Divernan]

45. Cite! Cite! Cite! - where are your bloody cites?

[Recursion]

50. BLS. I've cited all of these in numerous OPs

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Most recent U3 IS 5.5, while U4 is 5.8. Meaning the rate of discouraged workers is 0.3%.

[lumberjack_jeff]

65. U3 is 5.5 but U5 is 6.6

In other words 1.1% of the population are discouraged workers.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

U4 only counts people as discouraged if they've looked for work in the last 12 months.

[Recursion]

69. U5 is day laborers + discouraged + jobless and looking

The definition of discouraged worker is U4 - U3. It even says so in the table.

1.1% are either marginally attached. 5% are involuntarily part time. That's not good, but also not a disastrous number.

[Divernan]

73. Now was that so hard? We don't keep your prior OPs printed out and pasted to the

wall above our computers. And that was only one cite, not applicable to many of your other claims on this thread. If you're going to start a thead, deliver the goods, in the form of cites.

[lumberjack_jeff]

51. Odd that they all did so in the same year... and didn't return to work when things got sooo good. nt

[Recursion]

58. All 0.3% of them? Yes, that's remarkable

There is a nonzero population that gave up after the recession, but it's not a very large one.

[lumberjack_jeff]

68. 5% of the population left work in 2008 and about .5% have returned. n/t

[eridani]

234. And what in fucking hell makes you think that is always voluntary?

Given that the job prospects for a 62 year old chemist (with significant medical expenses) laid off with a bunch of other old people are shitty, I just said fuck it and took the early Social Security.

[Recursion]

239. If you would take an offered job BLS counts you as "discouraged"

They don't really have a category for "retired", strangely.

From your description you're in the 0.5% discouraged population.

[notadmblnd]

42. It's great that things are so rosy for you

and that you are over 50 and have a job because I know 3 people in my household over 50 that don't. Two of the women are divorced and one is a widow. I have 3 sisters all of us over 50. Three of us do not have jobs. One has indeed stopped looking. She suffers from depression and at this moment is spending day 3 of this week lying in her bed eating her anti-depressants (which she can now get because of the ACA) and looking forward to later when she can take more pills so she can go back to sleep.

The widow is working on getting her own business off the ground. She currently generates about 2400.00 a month in income cleaning houses for well to do millenials and senor citizens. She uses that 2400.00 to support her two sisters and another woman she knows who is over 50 who can't get a job because she has seizures. The widow is the lucky one in the bunch. Why? Because her husband when he was alive had a good paying union job and through that union she is provided with part of his pension and health care and as long as she never gets married again, she will retain that small income (about 500 a month) until the day she dies.

The other 3 women over 50, I guess you could say are lucky; under the ACA, they finally have health care. One sister has recently lost a lot of weight. She has a lump in her groin about the size of a golf ball and is finally getting it looked at next week. If she is really lucky, it won't be cancer and she will be able to continue to work with her sister the widow cleaning houses.

The lady who has seizures and also helps the widow clean houses, was never able to see a Dr until recently. In the past, everytime she has had a seizure and been taken to the hospital, she has checked herself out because she couldn't afford to pay a bill. Needless to say, she has never been able to follow up (until recently) and is now in the process (with the help of two of the sisters) of creating the paperwork necessary to be able to apply for disability. Still, that is going to take about another year to complete.

The widow, the really lucky one who has a small cushion and has been able to help these other 3 women financially suffered a bout of diverticulitis last November, she ruptured her guts and did not know it. And if not for her son rushing her to the hospital in the middle of the night, would have been dead. Well, she's so lucky that she now has her guts stick out a hole in her side which is attached to a plastic bag that she shits in. Yeah, she's the lucky one alright.

So on behalf of myself, my sisters and the lady that has seizures, I would like to take a moment and apologize for your annoyance. I try not to complain on DU about it. I really do.

Again, congratulations on your success in life. Hopefully you will not spend too much time being annoyed by those of us who do indeed live a different reality than you. I sincerely mean that.

[Divernan]

71. Sorry for what you & your family are going through.

I have family members with excellent degrees (IT) & experience who have been reduced to working 2 low paying jobs at a time just to survive. So yes, they are employed, but with no health insurance, no sick days, let alone vacation days. The U.S. used to be so much better than that.

[notadmblnd]

79. Oh, don't feel sorry for me. I'm the lucky widow.

Seriously. We all have roofs over our heads and our basic needs are met. Others have it so much worse. The OP's post just rubbed me the wrong way and I vented.

[truebrit71]

46. Where do you buy your rose-tinted glasses?

I need a pair....or two...

[treestar]

53. It looks like from responses

Some people having trouble still don't want to be part of that 3% because they think that makes them look bad? If you are part of that 3% there could be good reasons a person is still not employable. But it's a kick to the self esteem. Better to say nobody can get a job, it's not just me.

I think some of the over 50 group also might be having a problem not getting as good a job as they might have had before. That's a kick to the self esteem too. So it's more comfortable to think it is age discrimination rather than not being employable on a good terms as before. It's just the market but when it is not favorable to a person, it can't feel good.

The people "giving up" has never made sense. If they are retired, or can afford to "give up" there's no problem. They are leaving an opening for someone who really needs it.

[Recursion]

61. 0.3% (nt)

[Zorra]

62. Let them eat cake!!!

Obviously, you are well off, and don't have a realistic view of what is really going on with the average American working family.

Statistics, damn lies, and statistics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

[Cosmic Dancer]

116. My college statistics professor, Jack Shannon, used to say,

"Statistics don't lie, liars use statistics"

[Fumesucker]

63. What's in *your* wallet?

Your OP sounds like absolutely typical IGMFY, I don't think you meant it that way but you just disrespected anyone and everyone who is having a hard time making ends meet.

Things are great all over so if you can't hack it you are just a lazy good for nothing unemployable slob.

That's what your OP has said to anyone who happens to be unemployed, nice message for a "progressive" website.

[WestCoastLib]

107. The problem with this line of thinking...

Things are great all over so if you can't hack it you are just a lazy good for nothing unemployable slob.

That's what your OP has said to anyone who happens to be unemployed, nice message for a "progressive" website.

I don't think that's what the OP said at all.

And the problem with your line of thinking is that as long as there is not 100% employment, your problem of how someone who happens to be unemployed feels is going to be somebody's reality.

However, progressive ideals, have always valued the greater good over what is necessarily "best" for us personally. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Even when you are a member of that few. We do this by choosing to support higher taxes and wealth distribution, public schools, debt forgiveness, single payer, etc.

And by the same token we should certainly acknowledge when the economy has improved considerably as being a good thing, even if it hasn't helped us personally.

[Fumesucker]

126. Perspective counts for a lot

If your wallet is reasonably full and your bills are paid the OP looks reasonable, if your wallet is flat and you have creditors dunning you constantly, your water and electricity are cut off and you don't have the money to fix your broken car or your infected tooth then the OP looks very different and far more harsh.

[blm]

64. "Both sides are the same" = Rand2016

See:

No difference.

Both sides share blame equally.

Plenty of blame to be shared by both parties.

[Cleita]

67. Why do you not have links to your sources so we can scrutinize them?

For one I can blow up your unemployment figure right now. People, who have been unemployed for a very long time are not showing up on the statistics anymore. People who are unemployed at their professional, good paying jobs that were sent overseas are now employed at more menial, low paying jobs. So any figure on unemployment and underemployment is an unreliable right now.

[Zorra]

102. Rhetorical question?

[L0oniX]

72. Being controlled by the oligarchy isn't all that bad.

[grasswire]

74. Don't you live in India?

I would imagine that skews one's perspective of what life is like or should be like in the U.S.

[99th_Monkey]

101. Good Catch! nt

[azmom]

112. WTF India?

[PowerToThePeople]

119. Maybe outsourcing US jobs there?

[Recursion]

124. Way to crap on government service, there

We appreciate it, those of us who go to shitty parts of the world for much less than we could make in the private sector to work for the US government, when people then accuse us of working against the US. It's just one of the many satisfactions of this job to get insulted like that...

[PowerToThePeople]

129. whatever

1) I have no idea what you do

2) You know this

3) I took a guess, many US companies are looking to India as a low wage outsourcing region.

3) you appear to have have a superiority complex.

Recursion (39,122 posts)
124. Way to crap on government service, there

We appreciate it, those of us who go to shitty parts of the world for much less than we could make in the private sector to work for the US government, when people then accuse us of working against the US. It's just one of the many satisfactions of this job to get insulted like that...

[SammyWinstonJack]

197. Isn't your wife from that "shitty part of the world" And you work for the US government by your

choice, I assume? So your choice to make less in wages? You want brownie points for that or sympathy?

[Enthusiast]

125. India? Really? I guess he knows all about the US standard of living.

Or maybe the Proposed New TPP Standard of Living®.

[Rex]

142. Yes they do, it is funny all the 'people' here like the OP that make up the biggest lies

about this country...and they don't even live here! I wish people would pay more attention to that fact, Americans getting played by people that don't live here is sad imo.

[grasswire]

153. +1 nt

[pogglethrope]

77. Regardless of the economic situation one way or another,

the United States is dystopian.

[MindPilot]

78. Mostly because your utopian picture hasn't trickled down to us peasants yet.

For a lot of people in their 50s and 60s unemployment is still around 100%. While the stats may say boomers are retiring en mass, for many, it is not voluntary. There simply are no decent job opportunities for older people, unless of course you consider being a greeter at Wal-Mart to be a job.

[azmom]

81. +1

[PowerToThePeople]

80. Keep calm, eat a sandwich.

Everything is peachy citizen, nothing to concern yourself with here.

I do not know others stories, but the last decade has been the most financially negative and turbulent of my life. I have lower savings than ever in my life, lower pay than ever in my life, and work more hours then ever in my life. Oh, my student loan balance is higher than it ever has been in my life.

[Cheese Sandwich]

83. This post is offensive. Two Americas. Yours may be great. Others face daily struggles.

Some people face daily indignities.

It's offensive to suggest people experiencing these things and wanting improvements have a hidden agenda.

Why are you so interested in making things seem wonderful?

[Bradical79]

91. Here's the labor stats for anyone interested.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Just throwing this up here in case anyone wants to use actual statistics in their arguments. One nice thing about our government is we get lots of numbers to look at before interested parties put their spin on things

[daredtowork]

199. Reasons I don't trust the labor stats

The Federal government has an enormous incentive to make stats look good - after all the economy is one big confidence game. No one wants to send out signals that will cause employers to batten down hatches.

As a disabled person, I have been put through the wringer of many poverty bureaucracies including self-serving employment programs that get funding for getting people employed but who mainly"coach" and blame and take credit of a client happens to get employed through their own devices. One of the problems with these programs is that they are tremendously incentivized to drive clients into unstable temp and seasonal work. The vast majority of jobs on offer are contract jobs. And poor people are forced to take them because of the lack of cash welfare for reason of poverty only. Once poor people are on that treadmill of temp work, gig jobs, on call shifts - it's exhaustingand makes them crazy - yet they don't have a chance to get something better while employed. Then every few months or weeks even they are unemployed again - then they are too busy being pushed into more gig work, dealing with poverty bureaucracies, and engaging in survival trades, to reach any kind of escape velocity. Labor stats keep measuring they are employed every few weeks. The State is happy with its lying statistics, but it is eating those people on the bottom alive.

Other tactics have been used to relieve the unemployment statistics. People make choices when faced with homelessness or suicide as the other options. "Going back to school" is the traditional one. "Travel" or "joining a monastery" less traditional. People are pressured to get married, and the non-working spouse is hidden. All of this is FORCED by the lack of safety net. Utopia is a lie.

On the bright side there were more programs to get veterans on disability and the chronically homeless and mentally ill on SSI. This is why the GOP is up in arms about "stealth welfare". They falsely think SSI mainly goes to black people since it's a way to get cash support if you aren't working. SSI roles are expanding: those that the Labor Dept needs to count as unemployed are shrinking.

I call bullshit on the Labor Department's unemployment stats. You might want to ask about what's being used as our "standard basket of goods" while you're at it. Govt. statistical honesty went out of style a long time ago.

[corkhead]

93. Are you trying to appropriate Manny's 3rd way bit?

It's funnier when he does it.

[hifiguy]

189. Well, it must be admitted that TWM sets a very high

satirical bar.

[closeupready]

94. If you see DU or its membership as the problem, Skinner's forum

is open to these kinds of complaints, and of course, you know where the door is.

Peace.

[Autumn]

95. Well in my experience these are true

Unemployment is high
Vast numbers of workers have given up looking for jobs. I gave up looking for a job and waited to collect early SS even though I lost 8 years of earnings.

Workers over 50 just can't find jobs ever Yeah that was me

Wages haven't increased Nope they haven't increased for most of the people I know YMMV

I get annoyed by the segment of DU that says that everything is just wonderful , the economy is peachy we have "health care" now so quit your fucking complaining and try to make up ways to paint other peoples situations as unimportant just because a segment is doing just great.

Did you ever stop to think that part of the the unemployment rate for people over 50 being 3%, lower than any other age group is because 0.3% of the workforce has given up looking for work and many others have taken low paying service jobs because that's all old folks seem to be good for, at least according to many employers.

Unemployment is lower than what was called "full employment" 20 years ago. Who was President 20 years ago? He and his ilk in his administration lied about a lot of things

[JDPriestly]

231. When I turned 50, I was told by one employer that there was "a reason men

divorce their wives when they turn 50." I was indispensable to the business. It closed a year after I left although it did fine while I was working there.

Another employer, upon learning I had turned 60+ simply told me that he wanted someone younger to do my job.

Age discrimination is very common in the US workplace.

In both my jobs, I had very good reviews. I asked the boss who told me he wanted someone younger whether it was my work or some problem with me. No. He said. There was no problem. He just wanted someone younger. He believed that it was legally OK for him to give that as the reason for dismissing me.

It is utterly depressing to lose a job you love just because of your age. Utterly depressing. So a lot of people over 50 lose their job and then go through a period of depression. They may or may not be able to give good interviews eventually. There are so many good, recent graduates or healthy, strong young people for the limited number of jobs available.

That's why people retire before the age at which their Social Security benefits are at their highest. Many Americans retire before they want to.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

97. Reality is not up for discussion.

Not sure what world you live in but I see clearly a very troubled land.

[tridim]

149. When did you first see this "very troubled land"?

[SoLeftIAmRight]

211. About 1980

why?

[raouldukelives]

98. A segment is also very invested in the corporations making it one. nt

[FlaGatorJD]

99. Don't you remember what Rush Limpballs said right after the election?

If Obama wins, we lose.

Sorry Rush,
If you're keeping score:
President Obama & the US: Winning!
Limpballs : Losing & almost gone

[Fearless]

106. You have no idea.

[Exilednight]

109. Let's get the real numbers.

Only 44% of the population over the age of 18 are employed full time. At a minimum we need to be at 50%.

14.7% are underemployed.

95% of all wage growth has gone to the top 1%.

Tell me, how is that recovery is going again?

[azmom]

111. 2.5 billion to mislead the populace

That is dystopian.

[kairos12]

113. Ringling called. They are running out of clowns.

[HoosierCowboy]

114. Everybody needs to talk about the

non political elephant in the room.
Automation. The real SHTF when truck drivers and mine haulers making $200,000 a year get replaced by robots. Because after that, Doctors, Lawyers and accountants ought to be looking over their shoulders.

[pasto76]

115. take a look at how this about a young man I know

is in the COARNG in a technical position....which translates nowhere to the civilian world. He works at Denny's, for minimum wage. They make those employees clean parts of the restaurant BEFORE they clock in. As one of his NCOs, Ive seen his pay stubs and he is, in fact, paying for health insurance. When he called a few weeks ago to see how he could use it, they told him that he 'isnt signed up'.

I work in skilled trades. We have health insurance, which is better than none. it works for the single guys who only go to the ER for chronic pain and serious medical issues. For a family it sucks.

My wages have been stagnant for a decade - despite increasing duties and 'required training' (read do it on your own time for free) while wall street posts record profits.

On the national guard side. Fuck. Barely any money to do anything for us. Schools are hard to get which means promotions are scarce. Im required to do all kinds of online training - like 80 hour courses (SSD if you are in the know, not correspondance courses) and receive zero pay for it. But it is required. Safety certs. Awareness certs. All for free.

Glad everything seems so rosy for you. Out here in reality, its still pretty grim.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

158. "They make those employees clean parts of the restaurant BEFORE they clock in."

U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD)

Resources for Workers

Off-the-Clock References

Fact Sheet #6: The Retail Industry Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

Typical Problems

Hours Worked: Employers must record and pay for all hours worked by employees including any time controlled by the employer, such as time spent "engaged to wait." Where employees report to work at their scheduled time, the employer must begin counting that as work time. However, if the employer immediately tells the employees that they are not needed, completely relieves them of duty, and gives them a specific report-back time which enables the employees to use the time for their own benefit, this time does not have to be counted as working time. If the employees are only told to wait until they are needed, and are not given a specific report-back time that is long enough to use for their own benefit, all of the waiting time is to be counted as hours worked.

Fact Sheet #22: Hours Worked Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

Definition of "Employ"

By statutory definition the term "employ" includes "to suffer or permit to work." The workweek ordinarily includes all time during which an employee is necessarily required to be on the employer's premises, on duty or at a prescribed work place. "Workday", in general, means the period between the time on any particular day when such employee commences his/her "principal activity" and the time on that day at which he/she ceases such principal activity or activities. The workday may therefore be longer than the employee's scheduled shift, hours, tour of duty, or production line time.

Application of Principles

Employees "Suffered or Permitted" to work: Work not requested but suffered or permitted to be performed is work time that must be paid for by the employer. For example, an employee may voluntarily continue to work at the end of the shift to finish an assigned task or to correct errors. The reason is immaterial. The hours are work time and are compensable.

[bobthedrummer]

120. "The reality-based community." n/t

[Romulox]

122. Wages flat for 40 years. The worst inequality since the Gilded Age. Lowest workforce participation

in 37 years...

[jeff47]

123. Try looking up statistics on labor participation rate instead of U3.

Because even U6 doesn't cover everyone who would actually like to work.

Also, try looking up income for those under 30.

Then you'll start to see the shimmer of the bubble you inhabit.

I eagerly await your claims that vast swaths of the workforce retired without being replaced by younger workers.

[raindaddy]

127. OK, Let's play pretend...

Let's pretend that the cost of a college education hasn't risen 1,120 % in thirty years. That fact in itself once was enough to get people into the streets.. Lets also ignore that in last thirty years the 1% income has risen 181 % while the rest of us saw a 2.6% rise in income..

It looks more like a segment of DU either have their heads buried in the sand or have an agenda..

[azmom]

154. It is absolutely obscene. I'm so happy Bernie

Stepped up to lead the revolution.

[Orsino]

128. If this were intended as a joke, it might have been a pretty good one.

A few minutes of poking around this site will introduce you to the many crises facing the country.

Welcome to DU!

[KauaiK]

131. This thread reminds me that numbers don't lie but liars can number.

[lark]

132. People over 50 having difficulty finding new jobs is true,

They are employed and can't leave their present job because they can't find one that will pay them the same or more. At least that's the case in No. FL. and expect it's much the same elsewhere. My husband is 54 and has been looking for a different job in his same fields for 3 years. He's sent out hundreds of resumes, even had a few calls, and 2 interviews, but no offers since he won't take less than he's making now.

Another friend is 50 and got laid off after working at the same place for 25 years. It took her 18 months to find a job and her pay is about 1/2 of what she was making before. She went from Office Manager to H/R clerk and had to ask her ex-husband move back in because she couldn't afford the house payments on her meager salary.

Wages have decreased from what they were the 1970's when adjusted for inflation. Some of the years you listed were in the middle of the worst Depression since the 1920's, so of course after that wages would go back up some - just not up to were they were previously.

For a lot of people, life is not a bowl of cherries as you seem to think. 680,000 American jobs have been offshored since NAFTA.

[Rex]

139. It is all true, just take what the OP says and reverse it. They love to lie about this stuff

and the rah rah crowd loves them for it.

[Rex]

133. Yes you are getting annoyed, because the truth hurts so you just make up stuff and stir the pot.

Seriously your act is so old and tired, don't you ever give it a rest?

[MadDAsHell]

135. Because hungry people don't give a shit about statistics and how they hurt/help a politician...

For what it's worth, I agree with you that that on a national scale, the #'s are pretty decent.

But when I'm hungry, weary, and nearly hopeless, even as a liberal, I could care less whether things are framed in such a way that makes the President look good. I just want a fkin JOB.

[Rex]

138. The OP is annoyed at the truth, poor baby.

[MisterP]

143. wages or income? counting the yuppie 401k class that sold out workers is wrong

[Recursion]

145. Wages more than income

Wages are up somewhat but household incomes are essentially flat.

In both cases that's the median.

[Taitertots]

146. Mass surveillance, wealth inequality, police criminality...

Systemic racism, sexism, LGBT discrimination, wars of aggression, secret deals with corporations(TPP/TISA), violence against peaceful protestors....

Why are people so interested in putting make-up on a pig?

But but but.... We're supposed to be happy right?

[NM_Birder]

147. Good call, "haters gonna hate"

I wish all those people without jobs would just shut up and revel in the 5.5% unemployment number.

An even better one ............... "among liberal Democrats, Obama has an 86% approval". That's like saying, 8 out of 10 people surveyed at Starbucks ......................... enjoy morning coffee.

[Martin Eden]

148. The US is somewhere in between DYSTOPIA and UTOPIA

Unfortunately it's a lot closer to DYSTOPIA than it needs to be, given the enormous wealth and technology available to us.

This is mostly because our political system is highly DYSFUNCTIONAL.

The representative democracy created by our nation's Founders depends on the informed consent of the governed, but large segments of the public don't bother to vote and/or they are terribly uninformed/misinformed and susceptible to manipulation by the false perceptions crafted by the relative few who own most of this country including the major media. Consent is manufactured, elections are theater, and government is largely controlled by those who finance political campaigns.

The growing disparity of wealth in this country indicates we are heading in the opposite direction of UTOPIA (which can never be fully attained, but the concept here is our relative position on a sliding scale that includes DYSTOPIA).

And, of course, the true health of a society should not and can not be measured solely in terms of wealth and employment. The health of our minds and our bodies and the planetary environment which sustains life itself are far more important that dollar signs in an economy characterized by consumerism and values based on material possessions. What good is working 50-60 hours a week and having the latest toys if you're stressed out and have very little quality time with your spouse and children?

And how healthy is a society that incarerates more people than any country on the planet; that has a police force and a citizenry constantly shooting/killing each other; that has a deteriorating public infrastructure while spending more on the military than the next 17 nations combined pursuant to fraudulent wars that perpetuate rather than eradicate global terrorism?

Personally, I live a fairly comfortable middle class life. At age 57 I have a steady secure job, I am not in debt, and I go on regular vacations. This post of mine is not the product of bitter personal experience, but I pay attention to what goes on in my country and try to stay informed about the real world (not the prepacked perceptions delivered to us via the main$tream media).

Just calling it as I see it. We, as a society, are falling far short of what should be reasonably expected given the resources we have. But it's not just a matter of falling short. Climate change, economic disparity, and political dysfunction are combining to create the very real danger of ACTUAL DYSTOPIA for our children or their children ...


... if we don't change course soon.

[Orrex]

151. Regarding the well-employed 50+ crowd...

How many started their current jobs after they turned 50, or before?

I believe that's the issue. It's not that people over don't have jobs; it's the perception/experience that it's more difficult to obtain a job after 50.

[uponit7771]

156. Because it worked against Clinton might as well do it again, Gore made a mistake distancing himself.

...from Clintons econ success

[Art_from_Ark]

229. Clinton's econ success?

You mean the tech bubble that burst a few months before the 2000 election?

[hobbit709]

157. A large number of the people I know live in a dystopian version of the U.S.

They live on the edge because once you get screwed bad enough you can't seem to really get back on your feet because the system is setup to keep you there.

[Rex]

162. The OP lives in India, how they know anything about America is a mystery to us all.

I guess they visited here once.

[hobbit709]

163. He's an American, working with the Foreign Service.

[Rex]

165. Must be nice to know so much, thousands of miles away from the actual country.

[msanthrope]

238. Um...they are American. nt

[rbnyc]

161. because those statistics aren't reflecting what we see in our own lives...

...and neighborhoods.

There are a lot of reasons why those statistics might be reflecting truth in some ways and not reflecting truth in other ways. That would be an interesting sub-topic.

But regardless of the nature of statistics, I believe that many people feel very economically insecure. I know I do.

A common experience is that we are not seeing increases in our pay, while we are seeing increases in our hours, our productivity and our cost of living. We pay more and more for health insurance each year while the rising cost of co-pays and shrinking pool of doctors who accept our particular plans cause us to neglect our own and our family's health care anyway. We can't afford to go to the dentist at all. We have no significant savings. We may be approaching 50 and trying to figure out how to pay for college for our kids while still paying our own student loans. We know we have little chance of ever being able to retire.

We may even be employed in a position where we are involved in hiring and see the hundreds of resumes coming in for a single low-paying position from recent graduates, and from long-term unemployed, overqualified older people.

We are under enormous pressure with little support all while record profits are hoarded by a small group of people with unprecedented power to influence public policy.

So, even knowing that anecdotes and statistics are very different things, we gravitate toward statistics that reflect what we see.

We repeat the stories that are like our own story.

And we are hoping for and working toward all the same things you are, a better society for all people.

Why are you dividing us?

[hobbit709]

166. "There's lies, damned lies, and statistics."-Mark Twain.

[rbnyc]

171. love that quote (nt)

[Rex]

172. And a tiny group here is desperately doing their best for Wall Street and the status quo.

Thankfully they are so bad at persuasive writing, that 99% of fellow DUers don't fall for it and recognize corporate propaganda for what it is.

[moondust]

173. Not really.

Some of us are old enough to remember when things were better economically for both rich and poor. Families living comfortably on one income, many without a college degree, etc. Trends over the past few decades have been toward more globalization and financialization leading to more wealth concentration at the very top. The farther we drift from meritocracy and shared prosperity toward an inherited oligarchy (Waltons, Kochs) in which it takes money to make money and the more money you have the more money you make, the worse off 99% of the people on this planet and their environment will be.

Top 10 Charts on Income Inequality and Wages

[kath]

174. What the heck is going on in this thread, where someone had a post hidden that just showed some DATA

/charts which the OP himself couldn't be bothered to do???

What the royal fuck? Why would such a post be hidden?
Absolutely the worst hide I have seen. somehow the Admins should be made aware, so that it can be undone.

[Hoyt]

180. I agree with that. It was a bad alert, bad hide.

[questionseverything]

190. agreed

[Recursion]

191. No idea who alerted or why that was hidden

I imagine it's because he was linking to a RW blog, but that generally doesn't get a hide on its own.

[m-lekktor]

212. i suspect the alerter claimed it was a right wing source

I am just assuming this because I wondered what the fuck about the same thing earlier and came to this conclusion based on the comments of others.

[kath]

186. Didn't mean for my earlier post to be a reply to you.

Was meant as a reply to the OP.

[moondust]

188. That's what I figured.

[Hoyt]

178. You can't get so-called progressives elected if the so-called "centrists" are marking progress.

[ucrdem]

182. Well put. So many here seem completely sold on wikileaks FUD

that I have to wonder, why does the guy elected twice to lead the world's leading economy have less credibility than a guy holed up for years in an Ecuadorian embassy evading arrest on a morals charge? And that's leaving aside the questions of exactly what wikileaks is and who really runs it which make the appeal of the Assange disinfo even more disturbing.

[lovemydog]

195. They don't get out much?

That's my guess. They also seem a bit high on their own negative supply.

[KG]

198. cool story , bro

[Bonobo]

203. The US is in a dystopian present. nt

[roody]

205. The US I grew up in was not full

of homeless people. Now I pass them daily in my small town. They have no hope. They have no care and nowhere to go.

[TM99]

206. I am sorry but I am going

to call you out on bias and an agenda.

You live in India, work for the government, and post apparently only on trade (NAFTA, TPP) always with the positives about Free Trade.

You appear to have an agenda and possibly get paid for it.

Who really cares if you get annoyed. You refuse to look at all of the data contrary to your position. It is argued with you over and over and over again.

If you came back to the US, maybe you would see that things really aren't that rosy for the working class as opposed to the ownership class.

[CK_John]

207. It's time to expand SocSec to age 50, enlarge the safety net.

[LordGlenconner]

208. Some covet the struggle

If Bernie were somehow elected (which is of course totally ludicrous) they'd start pecking away at him if he broke with them on even a single major issue. Then they would start looking for the next savior that fits their narrative. Rinse and repeat.

[Marrah_G]

209. Maybe in your world.

In my world, I don't see any of that.

[niyad]

210. the relentless, hate-filled assault on women's rights in this country is a fact.

[F4lconF16]

213. Racism, too.

And police violence, and state violence. The assault is constant. I hate this constant "war" terminology we use in our everyday language--we are far too comfortable with violence. But this is a war.

Things are relatively small right now. Ferguson was the beginning of another escalation, though. Cracks are beginning to show. People can take so many tiny humiliations, but so much theft of life and limb doesn't leave much to go on. Baltimore was kept quiet by the news. It's everywhere, though. In big, spray-painted graffiti art, too. Prominent places in rather large spaces.

We're not burning our cities down, yet. But Black Lives Matter has raised questions about wealth and inequality that are not going away. We need a total change. One that recognizes the full equality of all people, in all respects. This means schools in minority neighborhoods, money in infrastructure, healthcare with full access to reproductive services, including gender-reassignment therapy, full mental health care and addiction care with the best modern techniques--every level of our society must be changed. Because right now, honestly, we live in a seriously fucked up world.

At least 9 or 10 people I have met in the last 6 months, all fairly normal people, would be okay with a revolution. That's a pretty good chunk of the people I know. Not to mention the surprisingly large numbers of declared leftists, and get this--a recent poll sent to me by my conservative, democratic elite relative showed that almost half.of Americans would elect a socialist. That's nuts. A conservatively biased Gallup poll, by the way.

Let's hope we can change this system fast, or instead of tumbling into the next stage of civilization, we will be crashing to a halt. The world is changing, fast. The faster we change, the less painful it will be.

People like the OP like to ignore all this.

[niyad]

219. your post deserves its own op, so it can be rec'ced.

[F4lconF16]

220. Incorporated into this OP.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026929658

[niyad]

224. thank you. excellent post.

[joshcryer]

214. That's always the case.

Always has been, always will be, the uninformed will always paint this horrific picture of the US. While the US is the beacon for freedom and liberty in the world, even with its shitty aspects, it's trending evermore leftward. You cannot say that of even the most liberal EU country (fascism is on the rise in the EU), and you can't say that for any Latin American country save Cuba.

[LittleBlue]

221. None of that really matters. Look at the wealth concentration percentages

We are spiraling toward a level unseen since the robber baron days. Automation is creating incredible efficiency but also the redundancy of the human being. Workers in China are already experiencing this phenomenon even though they work for a few dollars a day. The next great struggle will be worse than anything we've seen before, with the 1% owning vast amounts of property similar to the great feudal lords who ruled over their impoverished masses. The wealth created by machines is unfathomable because they are faster, stronger, smarter and don't tire or ask for wages.

The future is much worse than many dystopian portrayals.

[Recursion]

222. A future where people don't need to work sounds awesome, personally (nt)

[LittleBlue]

223. Oh ho ho, that's not how it will work

We will need to work, there just won't be any.

We wouldn't need to work if the profits from those efficiency gains were distributed reasonably among the masses. They won't be. The profits will flow to corporations with no nationality. The way Apple does, where they allow the profits to flow through a foreign subsidiary in Ireland, and yet this entity is not actually considered a tax paying entity in Ireland, making their subsidiary a floating, nation-less thing that received tens of billions in profit and yet pays no tax.

If you think the common people will see these gains, you haven't met a clever corporate strategist. And with a political system run essentially by bribery and influence peddling, there is no hope for reform with either Democrats or Republicans.

[PatrickforO]

227. Hmm. Your post is provocative.

A dystopian future indeed, though I would not speak of jobs and labor market participation, or even minor gains in wages - though do show this as 'increased more' rather than 'began at...in...and ended at....in...' So this doesn't give us much basis for comparison. The truth is real wages have stagnated for the bottom three quintiles, risen slightly for the 4th and risen on a much steeper trendline for the top quintile. Which leads us to the first underlayment of our dystopian future:

1. Income and wealth inequality

Since much of this inequality is based on our tax code, we can also cite:

2. Deterioration of social programs that help Americans, and crumbling infrastructure

But, hey - we got the new F-35!!! What's that? Oh. It isn't ready yet - can't fly in thunderstorms...dang!

3. Current understanding of fiduciary responsibility of CEOs in publicly held firms as being ONLY to increase value for shareholders without regard to labor, and environment; add to this the immoral view of environmental disasters that the company(ies) can get away without paying for as 'externalities'

4. The fragile gains we've made in jobs (with good mfg jobs lost to NAFTA being replaced by lower wage service jobs) will end when the TPP goes into effect - it is NAFTA on steroids and we will lose millions of good jobs

Finally, the piece de resistance - the true dystopian elephant in the room...

5. Global warming and mass extinction - right now we are destroying the earth to turn a profit

Is there hope? Sure. But we've got to get money out of politics and recognize the current model of neoliberal capitalism for the cancer it is. It is simply unsustainable - we need to begin organizing our economy around some more regenerative concepts. In fact, there's a very hopeful essay out there called 'Regenerative Capitalism.'

Of course, we also have a populist rebellion in Congress and two populist Dems running against the establishment one. And we're seeing a building groundswell of populist revolt amongst rank and file Dems and Independents that is growing into a tsunami.