What to do about Unemployment?

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One of the things we can do is to count unemployment correctly. In the U.S. workers (so called "discouraged workers") who have stopped looking for work are not even counted as unemployed. If we count the ones who have stopped looking and are not counted our unemployment rate might be closer to 15 percent rather than the "official rate" of 8.1 percent.

The first step to solving a problem is to recognize it and measure it truly.

ruveyn

Plus people working part-time who are seeking full-time.

If you go by the percentage of workforce participation we are still at higher levels overall than in the 1950s when much fewer women worked. I don't think total workforce participation is any better a measure of economic health than raw unemployment. The broader issue is the restructuring of the labor pool and overall decrease in income on the lower and middle percentiles. It's not just a matter of unemployment but of lower paying jobs replacing previous higher paying ones.

Maybe people should just dismiss the "recovery" pipe-dreams politicians on both sides of the isles keep promising. No matter how many tax breaks we give to millionaires, corporations have no interest in paying anyone any more than they absolutely have to and won't unless people make a huge fuss and start protests and strikes, in which case they just move jobs over to the slave-wage countries. The downturn of 2008 gave them the excuse to lean out the workforce and they aren't going to go back without someone pointing a gun to their head.

Maybe we don't need half the population living in McMansions and driving gas-guzzling behemoth vehicles like we have for the previous decades. I think people in my generation are content to have smaller houses, drive smaller cars, and have less junk than our parents do. We just don't like the rupublican idea of pulling the rug out from under our feet and making us fear for our very survival. Most younger people can't afford to see a doctor, will be paying off college loans for the rest of our life, and might just be forced to work until the day we die once the republicans are through with social security. That is BS.

Return to the pre-NAIRU era policies. Abolish the whole idea of NAIRU and any central bank official suspected of pro-NAIRU sympathies are to be purged immediately. No to neo-Wicksellianism, no to NAIRU.

Well they where in the 90's I knew Germany would come good over time , the neo con types on both sides of the Atlantic wanted Fritz the engineer to turn in to a Starbucks Susie or Timothy the Tesco shelf stacker but gladly Fritz said "nein" to that. And continued to do what they did best aka Bulid %^&T and save money



It would be a pretty brave person to lecture the Germans on economic matters these days. Neo cons have even become silent on France these days speaking off I wonder if it will ever come good again ,and I mean really good as in "30 glorieuses " good perhaps not to that extreme but better than it is now, even so it's not quite the basket case Americans and Jermamy Clarkson of Top Gear fame like to make it out to be post war good or "bad " times gdp has been at 75-80% of Americas , considering they work less retire earlier and have a more generous welfare state that ain't a bad figure.

Will France come good ? It's been a question I've been asking myself oh for the about 20 years now

This is actually a good idea, but some of the problems with this are, people spend too much money on material things, and have no idea how to live on less income, inflation, and the fact that the government takes too much of our money. Also, even if we worked fewer hours, this still doesn't address the problem with pay inequality.

Another cause for unemployment, is that people just don't want to work, they don't have the skills/schooling needed to do certain types of jobs, or they don't want to work at lower end jobs.

There is also a problem with over-population. We have too many people on this planet for the amount of jobs needed. Combine this with the fact that many employers these days, hire as few people as possible to get the work done. If they can get one person to do 3 people's jobs, they will do it. If they can buy automated equipment to replace a whole group of people, they will do it...all so they can save/make more money.

^^^

France tried that ....

The U.S. is not over populated. The population density (population per square mile) is low, we grow more food than we can eat and we can produce all the goods and services that people want.

ruveyn

The population density in the U.S. may not be as high as other countries, but the U.S. is a large country (3,717,813 sq mi),
so people are more spread out. Also, I was referring to the global population, not just the U.S.

We can produce what we need and then some, but when corporations see that there people in other countries that are more desperate for jobs than Americans are, they will send them over there, in order to take advantage of the situation.

With globalization, unemployment is a global problem.

The big problem is when people start seeing their standard of living go south they're going to look for someone to blame. When things are staying roughly the same or improving people are generally happy, even if they are relatively poor. When people have to adjust to having less they tend to get ornery. The bigger moral dilemma though is the idea of eroding the social safety net on people who have few places to turn. I'm talking about disabled and sick people. It seems pretty disgusting that our society will decide these are the first people to sacrifice.

When you think about it, sick and disabled people are a drain on society, but anybody could end up in their place, at any time, and I'm sure they wouldn't turn down the assistance. People have a problem with putting themselves in other people's shoes. Personally, I have no problem with helping these people, but I do have a problem with helping people that abuse the system, or don't at least, attempt to help themselves. The problem is how do we seperate the people that really need help, from the people that don't.

The only thing I can come up with is to assign work to those who cannot get it in the private sector. That would require a government action. There is the potential for "make work" or there is the possibility of doing useful stuff. Think of the CCC during the FDR years. They replanted forests that were decimated by unregulated and unlimited tree harvesting. They built roads in areas where normal market forces could not sustain them, but were useful none the less. And so on.

The only excuse for not working is physical or mental disability to work at at a useful job. Since anyone can become sick or disabled it is a rational choice to help those who cannot help themselves.

I am not generally in favor of Government doing what the private sector should do, but in a pinch we may have to swallow our principles and do what must be done by any means.

ruveyn

We need more politicians who can put aside ideology and think like you. If I was 100% true to my ideological leanings I'd be some kind of anarcho-syndicalist but I realize that's a pipe dream. I also have some agreement with technocrat-style libertarians who would like to make the government bureaucracy simple, fair, and logical instead of a disorganized mish-mash of regulations, most serving a legitimate purpose yet in an archaic way, or shoehorned towards benefiting one special interest or another, but I realize the political system makes this difficult and the real world can be complicated.

I remember reading about ten years ago that approximately one out of three public schools had at least one building system, such as climate control, or plumbing, or electrical wiring for computers, which was in need of renovation.

Also important to perform the renovation in ways respectful to students and staff (unlike the way it was done at my old high school!).