Job Market’s 2.6 Million Missing People
Unnerves Star Harvard Economist
Bloomberg News,
by
Ben Steverman
Original Article
Posted By: NorthernDog,
1/18/2023 7:18:05 PM
Behind the five-decade low US unemployment rate of 3.5% lies a 2.6 million-person mystery. That’s roughly how many more Americans should be working or looking for jobs if the economy’s labor force participation rate was the same as before the Covid-19 pandemic. But something’s still off, leaving everyone from mom-and-pop businesses to Federal Reserve economists scrambling to answer a crucial question: Where are these workers? Economist Raj Chetty and his big-data experts at Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights lab went looking for these missing people. Their research relies on an innovative method of tracking the economy, built in the early months
Reply 1 - Posted by:
itsonlyme 1/18/2023 7:37:38 PM (No. 1381837)
Feeding at the public trough reassures the many "unemployed" that more whipping is necessary upon those that are pulling the wagon. The local watering hole dive is getting filled before Happy Hour. Terrible tippers, so they say.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
DVC 1/18/2023 7:43:43 PM (No. 1381840)
They decided that living on welfare was good enough. This gas been coming for decades as the number of welfare programs increased, and the payments increased, eventually it got to where working is no longer worth it.
15 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Axeman 1/18/2023 7:44:42 PM (No. 1381841)
FTA:
"Even before Covid, low-income workers were getting older — the US population’s median age has steadily risen since the 1970s — and struggling with employment barriers like a lack of affordable child care and housing. Then the pandemic made almost everything worse, including strains on families, effects on health, the hassles of commuting and the stress of the jobs themselves."
Not the pandemic, the fascist reaction to the fear of the disease.
21 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Heil Liberals 1/18/2023 9:10:02 PM (No. 1381878)
The first place to look is the streets of any Democrat run city. The second place is where the people who are willing to do more with less reside. There is a paradigm shift afoot. The Globalists made a grand miscalculation when they split earners into essential and nonessential. Tell a human they are nonessential and see how much you get out of them in the future. Now, the Globalists wonder where their slaves went.
12 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
pc1eszm 1/18/2023 9:18:29 PM (No. 1381883)
Not everyone who left the full time workforce at the start of the pandemic is living on the dole. Due to unfortunate timing, I was left to find another job when the company I was working for was sold right before the pandemic excrement hit the fan. After a momentary panic, Hubs and I figured that we would be OK if I retired along with him, so I did. I don't know if I'm one of those people being counted as a worker who left the workforce because of the pandemic, but if I'm left to find something positive to come out of the COVID nightmare, living the life of a happy retiree is definitely it.
17 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
coobr03 1/18/2023 9:50:45 PM (No. 1381905)
I have no idea how people continue to support themselves. I'm a partner in a commercial cleaning business and other than our Mexican staff, everyone quits within a couple of weeks because the job is too hard for them. Both my partner and I are in our later 50's and can (reluctantly) do the job, but American workers have become so self-entitled and soft. I can't stand all the personal business that people have. Just in the past two weeks I had one staffer not be able to come to work rescue their uncle five states away died and another with a dead cat.
We are beginning the initial process of selling the company to a 26 year old Hispanic employee who is smart, hard-working and I'm sure will continue to build the business. About a year ago, I received a text from him with a photo of his house ablaze. He wanted me to know that he would be late in opening the school in the morning, but had already arranged for someone to cover his shift. We are grateful for his commitment and one day he will be very wealthy. The others will just complain...
29 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Californian 1/18/2023 10:06:00 PM (No. 1381912)
I've worked very hard my whole life since high school but after the Covid mess decided early retirement was better. There's likely a significant number who got tired of working so hard to give half to the government.
As far as running a cleaning company goes, sorry, but if my family member is dying I'm not showing up to clean random houses for a few bucks. Years from now no one will remember I cleaned a house but I will remember the final moments my relative was here on earth.
10 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Encore 1/18/2023 10:36:40 PM (No. 1381923)
Yep. A whole host of those that would own nothing and be happy.
Please take care of me, and please don’t make me work!
7 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
caljeepgirl 1/18/2023 11:56:17 PM (No. 1381941)
I'm wiilling to bet that a fair number of dual-income households simply reverted to single incomes, willing to do with less, home-school, whatever, in order to achieve a more balanced and stable existence.
15 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
DiegoDude 1/19/2023 5:05:46 AM (No. 1382013)
No doubt there are a lot of moochers on the dole but a lot of people figured out they could get by on one income. My wife and I raised 4 kids, homeschooled them on one income even paid off our house long before COVID hysteria. It's not how much you make, it's what you do with it.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
Adam 1/19/2023 6:20:26 AM (No. 1382029)
Many reasons, of course. Some bad, like those who would rather receive benefits than work. And some good, like fewer women in the workforce. Sounds sexist? Maybe it is but 1) all of our social pathology stems from unstable homes and, as a general rule, women focusing on the home has a stabilizing effect. And 2) women weren’t encouraged to flock to the workplace back 50 years ago because of “equal rights” but because management desired cheap labor.
6 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 1/19/2023 6:23:04 AM (No. 1382030)
It makes me curious with #6's response. "Reluctantly" is put in parenthesis and yet criticizes Americans for being self-entitled and soft. It sounds vaguely familiar - kind of like Dick Cheney's assessment of Americans. What do you expect people to do in death situations? Let them sit there for days? There is something off-putting about the post. . .
3 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 1/19/2023 6:30:32 AM (No. 1382034)
And I figured out why poster #6's response is off-putting. He complains about complainers and doesn't realize that most of his post is about complaining.
There are a lot of hard-working Americans and I wonder if poster #6 is one of them. Maybe doesn't know how to hire them. . .
0 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
HPmatt 1/19/2023 6:59:41 AM (No. 1382049)
I thought Harvard eliminated math and counting as Racist.
Raj needs to drive southwest of Cambridge a thousand miles to check out the real world.
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Highlander 1/19/2023 7:07:52 AM (No. 1382054)
Dump welfare, minimum wage laws, and government over-regulatory interference, (every tree cut down for building materials had to have reams of paperwork generated for environmental impact reports in greenie California) and you’ll see them magically re-appear!
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
petrichor 1/19/2023 7:17:41 AM (No. 1382063)
Is it possible that these people don't exist and never have existed? We've been relying on employed/unemployed statistics for years. Many they've always been bogus.
0 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
nwcudagal 1/19/2023 7:21:05 AM (No. 1382065)
Just a guess on my part but what are statistics for disability claims in recent years? I don't know that many people but I know several who went on disability during this time.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
paral04 1/19/2023 8:19:21 AM (No. 1382102)
Check the welfare check register.
2 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
stablemoney 1/19/2023 8:45:22 AM (No. 1382130)
Here is some help for those that haven't any common sense. Older people decided to leave the labor force, when covid regulations hit, that normally would have continued working for many years. People in the lower jobs will not return to a job that requires a mask, shot mandates, odious work requirements, or question if the pay is worth public exposure to infectious diseases. People are turned off by woke and diversity, as the work environment has become hostile to work and accomplishing a job, being replaced by woke and division. People cannot talk without offending someone. No one wants to work in such a stifling environment. Johnny Paycheck says take this job and shove it.
5 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Aspen02 1/19/2023 10:27:18 AM (No. 1382225)
I would guess many jobs are being filled by illegals, paid under the table.
2 people like this.
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It's no mystery. They are sitting at home on the couch, playing around on their cellphones, and collecting government handouts.