The silent yet steady substitution of unemployment benefits with federal disability insurance is well covered in an episode of <i>This American Life</i> [1]. We, as a country, have a shoddy system for re-training low-skills workers facing technological obsolescence. We have also set up a system under which unemployment benefits are largely a state liability. Disability, on the other hand, is federally funded. The intersection of these trends, as documented by <i>This American Life</i>, lands us in the curious situation of state governments encouraging their unemployed to seek disability benefits (thereby shifting their burden onto the federal budget).<p>In the short run, state unemployment and federal disability benefits have similar effects. Social stability is enhanced through buying off the poor. But long-term disability is not designed for the under-trained. Its means-testing paradigm discourages even the exploration of employment options which might jeopardise the applicant's disability status. Thus a one-way valve to dependency on the state's largesse.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/trends-with-benefits" rel="nofollow">http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/490/t...</a>
Look ma, that's me! Free of a soul crushing corporate job, back to doing a "startup", I may not have the cash rolling in, but at least I'm in control of my destiny. Hey Ma, I'm moving in!<p>I think there are a lot of people out there like me. I have some money coming from side projects, several opportunities to grow that, and several opportunities for new side projects.<p>And quite a long personal runway before I have to "get a job" again.<p>If I can get to personal ramen profitability, that would be great.<p>And if my cofounders and I get a real startup off the ground that can pay us salaries.... well, then I can start showing up in statistics as employed again.<p>But either way, it's not as big a deal to me as it would be to men of my age 20 years ago.<p>And that's a huge shift-- in opportunity towards the individual.
> The places with the highest rates of male nonwork include parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas and Michigan.<p>The areas of high unemployment in Arizona and New Mexico overlap almost exactly with the Indian reservations. A problem deserving its own analysis.
I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life.<p>"what they do instead"<p>Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience, motivation and networking. I took anti depressants for 4 years but am not so unhealthy in term of mental health...<p>I'm back at school again, for some equivalent degree, but on 1 year, I have an internship starting wednesday, I really hope it will hook me to some job opportunities.<p>If I don't get the degree nor a job, well I could really try to start some crowdfunded game project or social network, but I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers. Maybe I'm really incompetent.
There are books on this phenomenon. Part of what they say is now men have access to their basic needs with out needing to work as much. Entertainment is abundant and relatively cheap and sex isn't tied to marriage. You can lounge around and be if not exactly satisfied, at least not terrible wanting for stuff. Of course these guys are screwed when it comes to retirement.
The article states that every month the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics asks all men who are not working and not receiving unemployment benefits what their situation is.<p>How does this process work? Having been in this population, I know for certain nobody from the government has ever asked me for this information.
The problem is there is a multiplier affect from technology today that causes unemployment. The average IQ required to be economically relevant is increasing each year.
(A little facetiously, but..) Perhaps this is just the decrease of work required that was historically expected by economists, being applied unevenly.<p>Of course there's nothing in the article to suggest many of these people are happy.
>Some countries have developed policies that encourage older people to leave the labor force, so they do not “crowd out” younger workers<p>Classic lump of labor fallacy.
As of 2011, there were 3.5M disabled veterans, of which 800K were receiving significant disability benefits.<p><a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb12-ff21.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_...</a>
That's an awesome graph. I mean, we could say some things like that the thickness of the gray bit is not so clear, or that it might be better if smoothed, perhaps the legend would be better elsewhere than in the coloured areas, but... it is still a totally expressive and elegant graphic.
I am mesmerized by the age 40 bar. It barely moves; a few more people are retired or are in school. My armchair speculation is that turning 40 really makes people reexamine their decisions.
I occasionally see the rise of the single-breadwinner family where a woman has a job celebrated as forward progress for gender equality or something, but that's misguided. Frankly, a lot of men are just unable to work and then their families are forced to subsist on the woman's job, which still pays, on average, less. Newspapers talk a lot about high-powered female executives with stay-at-home husbands and so on, but that's a small sliver, not somehow representative of the trend.
> People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures.<p>One of these is not like the other…<p>Everyone in the military (at least, who's not also imprisoned) should count as fully-employed.
This related article, also dated today, was linked at the bottom, and is a longer read with more/different details and stories:<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-vanishing-male-worker-how-america-fell-behind.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/upshot/unemployment-the-va...</a>
Where does minimum wage [objectively] fit in?<p>If an employer can't pay someone what a job is worth, either the job doesn't get done or a machine is found to do it - leaving someone without the opportunity for a job. Yes, it may not be a "living wage", but no wage is even less desirable.<p>I've started using Taco Bell's remote ordering app. The clerk, seeing how I'd ordered (not using his services), yesterday thanked me for making his job easier. Couldn't help thinking that rather than happy, he should be scared: with all the talk about pushing for $15/hr minimum wages, coupled with automation of order-taking, he's facing prospects of no job instead of an easy one.<p>I know minimum wage is meant to help, but it only contributes to increased unemployment and inflation.
I know this isn't entirely on point but I couldn't help thinking of Mr. Jaggers replying to Pip's question "what will I do?" with "Be a gentleman, of course!" (Dickens reference) when I saw the title.
"The decline of traditional pension plans and rising education levels, which are associated with less physically demanding jobs, may both help explain why the elderly are working longer."<p>Nice spin there, NYT.
"Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead"<p>Surprised that "read HN" isn't listed as one of the "insteads". Which reminds me, I really ought to do some work.
> To the extent that rising nonwork reflects more men graduating from school, that’s good news. Male high school graduation rates have risen 5 percentage points since 2000, and people with more education earn more and are less likely to be disabled later in life.<p>I am not positive this computes. People with more education might earn more <i>now</i> but that doesn't mean that their wages or the amount of jobs in their domains won't go down when more people have a degree.
This article describes the growth of disability benefits and the way they are dispensed: thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/09/how_to_be_mean_to_your_kids.html
There are lot of factors which are discussed but not considered when it came to concluding this topic.<p>The increase in population : Instead of comparing the ratio or the percentage of working vs non-working with the present population it compares x out of every 100.<p>The increase in jobs : 2000 vs 2014, the number of jobs available has also changed which is not taken in account. As mentioned in the article older people end up creating more jobs.<p>The increase in unemployment rate : Yes, this contradicts with the above mentioned increase in jobs point but this should also be a factor. This also is affected by people not-from US who work in US.<p>The Shift in Generation : 14 years brings/builds a very different minded person and this person might have a different approach to living.<p>The higher standard of living : This also is one of the reasons why older people are still working and won't leave their jobs as their value is appreciated, helps pay the debt and they could satisfy all their needs to live a life of luxury(?) and fulfil all their ambitions.
The only remarkable thing about this NYT article is that it appeared at all. Read Charlse Murray "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010".
None of this is new or surprising. It would be more interesting to apply this kind of visualization to industries, % or part-time jobs, freelance workers, etc.
One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town and never gets a reply.<p>If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.
>When more older people are working, they are earning money that they will then spend in ways that may create more jobs for young people, for example.<p>But... older people earn 2-3 times more than a younger one (at, least in Portugal). So for each old people there could be 2-3 younger working.<p>So if you lay off 100 old people you can get ~2500 younger people working. Of course, I doubt that the productivity will be lower per person, but here you are paid by how old are you (not, experience) * what you know