Real Unemployment

[2centsworth]

http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/graphs/2013/04/us-unemployment-rates.jpg

[boutons_deux]

then add in the Ms of workers in shitty, low-paid, unwanted part-time/temp jobs considered as "employed"

[FuzzyLumpkins]

How many baby boomers have retired now that the stock markets are back up and their IRA's are no longer shitty? The generation is now 48 to 68 years old. Note the age of the oldest, note the minimum age for SS benefits and imagine the trend going forward.

[Nbadan]

Raise the minimum wage and the participation rate will go up......duh!

[Wild Cobra]

Raise the minimum wage and the participation rate will go up......duh!
Or...

Reduce government assistance, and people will take lower paying jobs.

[Nbadan]

Or...

Reduce government assistance, and people will take lower paying jobs.

That didn't work under Clinton.....welfare moms worked 40 hours per week, took buses to work for hours and the kids? Latch key kids with no supervision..

[Wild Cobra]

OK everyone, just stop buying imports and demand manufacturing return here.

[Wild Cobra]

That didn't work under Clinton.....welfare moms worked 40 hours per week, took buses to work for hours and the kids? Latch key kids with no supervision..
Do you really think it made a difference? As a statistical group, they were poor parents to begin with.

[Nbadan]

Do you really think it made a difference? As a statistical group, they were poor parents to begin with.

Stereotyping gets you everywhere...there are plenty of affluent poor parents..but at least they get the opportunity to be parents..

[Wild Cobra]

Stereotyping gets you everywhere...there are plenty of affluent poor parents..but at least they get the opportunity to be parents..
I see.

It's OK for you to do it, but not the rest of us.

OK...

[Nbadan]

Rent is too damn high


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rHEitsYJnmw#!

[Wild Cobra]

What is it with you board liberals? Think about this saying we need higher minimum wage and why you say we need it. You are thinking it to be a bandage solution for people's irresponsibility.

Most of these people should have never had kids to begin with. They should be stigmatized, and scorned, as an example. So others don't want to follow in their footsteps. We need to do something to stop people from having kids that cannot afford to have kids.

Solve the root problems, and stop imposing ideas on the rest of society to deal with your acceptance of irresponsibility.

[ElNono]

^ lol authoritarian

[Nbadan]

Most of these people should have never had kids to begin with. They should be stigmatized, and scorned, as an example. So others don't want to follow in their footsteps. We need to do something to stop people from having kids that cannot afford to have kids.

Solve the root problems, and stop imposing ideas on the rest of society to deal with your acceptance of irresponsibility.

Sterilize the poor? or kill them? put them in a camp perhaps? throw a punisher emblem on them?

[Wild Cobra]

^ lol authoritarian
Do libertarians advocate lack of responsibility?

[Wild Cobra]

Sterilize the poor? or kill them? put them in a camp perhaps? throw a punisher emblem on them?
Twist what I say as you wish, but stigmas work.

If you wish to support the irresponsible people of this nation, then get together with like minded people, and start a charity for them. Put your own money where your mouth is. Just stay out of the tax payers money, and my wallet.

[ElNono]

Twist what I say as you wish, but stigmas work.

Stigmas like "47% are takers"? Yeah, that worked really well... :lol

[Latarian Milton]

the actual unemployment rate should be much higher than what's shown in the graph imho. a good deal of those who're currently "employed" are in fact underemployed, who have to work heavy hours but barely make 1k dollars a month in AMERICA, which's atrocious and hilarious. among all people of working age, only half of them are being full-time employed imho.

[Nbadan]

....maybe Hitler was just a misunderstood libertarian who advocated personal responsibility?

[Wild Cobra]

the actual unemployment rate should be much higher than what's shown in the graph imho. a good deal of those who're currently "employed" are in fact underemployed, who have to work heavy hours but barely make 1k dollars a month in AMERICA, which's atrocious and hilarious. among all people of working age, only half of them are being full-time employed imho.
Utopia doesn't exist. There will always be someone who has to work undesirable low wage jobs.

[Nbadan]

Utopia doesn't exist. There will always be someone who has to work undesirable low wage jobs.

..and it's their right to do it full-time and still not make a living wage...

[Wild Cobra]

....maybe Hitler was just a misunderstood libertarian who advocated personal responsibility?
You are twisted Dan.

[Wild Cobra]

..and it's their right to do it full-time and still not make a living wage...
Yes. It is their lot in life. They can work to improve their life, but it is not for you socialists to make us pay for them if you wish to enable them. Do it with your own money, and like minded friends if you want to help them. Just stay out of my wallet.

[boutons_deux]

Or...

Reduce government assistance, and people will take lower paying jobs.

taxpayers already top up Walmart workers to a living wage with foodstamps and medicaid. You're fucking stupid. Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour to get people off assistance.

[boutons_deux]

Two-Thirds of Small Business Owners Support a Higher Minimum WageThe advocacy group Small Business Majority is out this morning with a new surve (http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/about-small-business-majority/)y that bolsters efforts to raise the minimum wage.


President Obama ignited the debate earlier this year when he proposed raising the hourly minimum wage from $7.25 to $9, arguing that it would help working families. Congressional Democrats countered with a higher bid, suggesting $10.10. Both proposals would tie the minimum wage to inflation so it keeps up with the cost of living.

Conservative groups have pushed back, protesting that a higher minimum wage would hurt businesses at a sensitive time and force them to lay off low-wage workers. But Small Business Majority’s survey (http://www.demos.org/blog/two-thirds-small-business-owners-support-higher-minimum-wage#) sheds doubt on this argument. Here are some of the highlights:




When asked whether they support increasing the federal minimum wage (http://www.demos.org/blog/two-thirds-small-business-owners-support-higher-minimum-wage#) and tying it to inflation, a full two-thirds of small business owners were in favor.


When presented competing arguments on the minimum wage issue – will it benefit the working poor, or will it lead to higher prices and more unemployment? – 65 percent sided with those who believe hiking wages would help the poorest Americans and reduce the pressure on government assistance (http://www.demos.org/blog/two-thirds-small-business-owners-support-higher-minimum-wage#).


Two-thirds agreed that a minimum wage increase would help the economy by putting more money in the hands of those most likely to spend it.



A higher minimum wage, then, attracts overwhelming support from a group of people who are truly “small business” owners by any definition. All of the individuals polled by Small Business Majority ran their own company, with 69 percent bringing in annual revenue under $500,000. Only a handful reported family income over $250,000.

http://www.demos.org/blog/two-thirds-small-business-owners-support-higher-minimum-wage

[TeyshaBlue]

What is it with you board liberals? Think about this saying we need higher minimum wage and why you say we need it. You are thinking it to be a bandage solution for people's irresponsibility.

Most of these people should have never had kids to begin with. They should be stigmatized, and scorned, as an example. So others don't want to follow in their footsteps. We need to do something to stop people from having kids that cannot afford to have kids.

Solve the root problems, and stop imposing ideas on the rest of society to deal with your acceptance of irresponsibility.

I'm not a board liberal, and the lack of a living wage is one of the root problems.

[TeyshaBlue]

.......... throw a punisher emblem on them?

In!:lol

[TeyshaBlue]

Twist what I say as you wish, but stigmas work.

If you wish to support the irresponsible people of this nation, then get together with like minded people, and start a charity for them. Put your own money where your mouth is. Just stay out of the tax payers money, and my wallet.

Show us how "stigmas" work. And before you do that, please provide your working definition of stigma.

[TeyshaBlue]

This ought to be good.

[resistanze]

This is God's will. Let's all pray for Obama.

[boutons_deux]

WC got suckered, because it matches his laughable bias, by 1%er St Ronnie denigrating, slandering, criminalizing ALL public assistance recipients as Welfare-Queen-in-Cadillac frauds.

[CosmicCowboy]

What is it with you board liberals? Think about this saying we need higher minimum wage and why you say we need it. You are thinking it to be a bandage solution for people's irresponsibility.

Most of these people should have never had kids to begin with. They should be stigmatized, and scorned, as an example. So others don't want to follow in their footsteps. We need to do something to stop people from having kids that cannot afford to have kids.

Solve the root problems, and stop imposing ideas on the rest of society to deal with your acceptance of irresponsibility.

http://blogs.rowlandhs.org/groups/english10honorssummerreading/public/6b20f.gif

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I agree 100% with Wild Cobra on the fact these people who are dirt poor not having kids. What I don't get is why he complains about unprepared parents having kids when he's pro-life.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Or...

Reduce government assistance, and people will take lower paying jobs.

Right, because it's not like there are millions of people who work low pay jobs 40+ hours a week who receive government assistance.

[RandomGuy]

Twist what I say as you wish, but stigmas work.

If you wish to support the irresponsible people of this nation, then get together with like minded people, and start a charity for them. Put your own money where your mouth is. Just stay out of the tax payers money, and my wallet.

Personally, I am tired of libertarian policies that pick my pocket and force me to pay for things I don't want.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

This ought to be good.

But it won't be.

[TeyshaBlue]

But it won't be.

My standards are pretty low, tbh.

[boutons_deux]

Real Faces of the Minimum Wage

Corporate interests and their elected representatives have created a world of illusion in order to resist paying a decent wage to working Americans. They’d have us believe that minimum-wage workers are teens from ’50s TV sitcoms working down at the local malt shoppe.

It’s a retro-fantasy where corporate stinginess creates minority jobs, working parents can’t possibly be impoverished, and nobody gets hurt except kids who drive dad’s convertible and top up their allowances with a minimum-wage job slinging burgers.

But then, you probably need to resort to fantasy arguments when you’re arguing against a minimum-wage increase supported by nearly three-quarters of the voting public. That’s also why it’s important to demand that Congress allow an up-or-down vote on the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which would raise it to $10.10 and then index it to inflation.

Here’s the truth: Most minimum-wage workers are adults, the majority of them are women, and many are parents who are trying to raise their children on poverty wages.

The Facts

Minimum wage workers are adults.

Nearly 80 percent of the workers who would be directly affected by a minimum wage increase are adults, as seen in an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center. When you include those who would be indirectly affected that figure becomes more than 92 percent.

Less than 16 percent of workers who would be affected by President Obama’s minimum-wage proposal are teenagers.

Minimum wage workers are parents.

Many of those workers are parents. More than seven million children – nearly one out of every 10 kids in the United States – have parents whose income would go up under a new minimum wage. When you count the parents whose wages would be indirectly affected, that rises to more than 11 million (or roughly one in six) children whose households would benefit from the increase.

Most minimum-wage workers are women.

That’s not something the right wants to emphasize. Other than formally declaring itself “anti-woman,” there’s not much more the GOP can do to lose the female vote. It certainly doesn’t want people to notice that this is one more policy that disproportionately harms women.

The Fantasy

This may not be a “Leave It to Beaver” world, but there are plenty of real-life Eddie Haskells. Remember Eddie, the unctuous and untrustworthy high-school self-promoter? Think Mitt Romney – who supported raising the minimum wage, at least in principle, until he began a presidential campaign that was funded by his fellow millionaires and dependent on today’s radical right. Then he reversed himself quicker than a fella could say “You look lovely today, Mrs. Cleaver!”

Romney argued that the minimum wage should be tied, not to productivity or executive gains, but to world indicators. That would create a global wage race to the bottom, one that hurts everyone except the wealthiest corporate leaders worldwide. That’s the point, of course. (“You look lovely today, Frau Merkel!”)

Last month Republicans in Congress rejected a proposal that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10. They’ve also indicated they would reject the president’s more modest proposal for a $9.00 minimum.

True to form, they keep trotting out that tired old “malt shoppe” argument. Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, for example, said she opposed a higher minimum wage because “you’re going to exclude a lot of younger workers.”

Remember, more than eight out of ten workers affected by a minimum wage hike are adults.

The Dirt

When it comes to the Right and the minimum wage, it’s not all malted milks and sock hops. There’s also their much-beloved fantasy of the minimum wage as “racist.” Seriously. It’s a dirty argument to make – but then, there’s a lot of money at stake.

Roy Edroso is one of a hardy band of writers whose beat includes the ever-growing body of “right-wing lit.” (We owe them a debt of gratitude. They go spelunking in the dark caves of the human spirit so that we don’t have to.) Edroso points us to Jonah Goldberg’s assertion that the minimum wage’s original backers were racists who supported it specifically because it harms black people.

Bizarrely enough, this is a common right-wing stratagem. The Wall Street Journal even calls an increased minimum wage “The Minority Youth Unemployment Act.“ While it’s touching to note the editors’ new-found solicitude toward nonwhite kids, they’re ignoring the fact that the vast majority of minimum-wage workers aren’t “youth.”

They aren’t minorities, either. Awkwardly enough for race-baiters like Goldberg and the Journal, most minimum-wage workers are white. There are more minorities among minimum-wage earners (who are 57.9 percent white) than in the overall workforce (which is 67.9 percent white). But that doesn’t support the “race” arguments against raising the minimum wage.

The Trip

Neither do the economic analyses, unless you rely on the highly selective economic studies employed by the Journal and other anti-minimum-wage advocates. Some rely on “meta-studies,” or analyses of earlier studies, which selective pick and choose from earlier works. Others rely on the work of economists with a pronounced ideological bent to the right.

The short answer to their job-creation argument is this: The minimum wage has dropped 30 percent in real dollars since 1968. Where are the jobs?

Meanwhile, the right keeps projecting its liquid illusions onto the walls of their political reality like a low-rent psychedelic show in… well, in 1968, when the minimum wage was much higher and the economy was doing much better than it is today. (The official unemployment rate that year was 3.6 percent.)

Here’s another mind-bending image: We’re told that raising the minimum wage would harm small companies – but most low-wage employees work for large corporations.

We’re also told that employers can’t afford to raise their pay, but these corporations are experiencing record-level profits. (We deal with these last two arguments in greater detail here.)

And so the debate rages on, fueled by the cheap hallucinogenic deceptions of the corporate-funded right. Corporate profits continue to soar. CEO pay keeps skyrocketing. Suburban skylines are being reshaped by the megamansions of our New Gilded Age.

And meanwhile the Real Faces of the Minimum Wage – the mothers, fathers, the young and the old – struggle to survive and raise their children in an increasingly harsh world, far from the media spotlight and invisible to the powerful interests arrayed against them.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15994-real-faces-of-the-minimum-wage (http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15994-real-faces-of-the-minimum-wage)

[FuzzyLumpkins]

My standards are pretty low, tbh.

:lol LIES!!!!

[TeyshaBlue]

Truthout needs to do their homework.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm

[TeyshaBlue]

"Minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly-paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 23 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over. (See table 1 and table 7.)"

[TeyshaBlue]

Not that the argument is invalidated, but hoisting false factoids destroys the credibility of truthout on this one.

[RandomGuy]

http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/graphs/2013/04/us-unemployment-rates.jpg

2008-65 = 1943

2010-65=1945

2012-65=1947

The above equations make me think the red line doesn't quite mean much.

[RandomGuy]

Not that the argument is invalidated, but hoisting false factoids destroys the credibility of truthout on this one.

Your quoted fact does not negate Truthouts statement, based on another source:


Minimum wage workers are adults.

Nearly 80 percent of the workers who would be directly affected by a minimum wage increase are adults, as seen in an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center. When you include those who would be indirectly affected that figure becomes more than 92 percent.

Simply because the BLS didn't differentiat between "adults" (17 or younger) and minors.

Given that the ages 16-25 are 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 The statement "80% are adults" would seem to be validated.

If half are over 25 that is 50% of the minimum wage workers,
and
the ages 18-25, i.e. "adults" comprise most of the cohort of 16-25 year olds,
and,
I would guess, a disproportionate amount of workers compared to 16 and 17 year olds who, by and large, are still in high school,
Truthouts blurb is actually almost certainly accurate.

Better would be to acknowledge the skewness of youth, but not misleading, or inaccurate, it would seem, especially if 50% of minimum wage workers are over 25.

[boutons_deux]

at those number are for exactly $7.25. Plenty of ADULTS are under $10/hour. the avg walmart associate is well under $20K/year ($10 x 2000)

[George Gervin's Afro]

Or...

Reduce government assistance, and people will take lower paying jobs.

and in turn..require govt assistance

[RandomGuy]

Minimum wage workers are parents.

Many of those workers are parents. More than seven million children – nearly one out of every 10 kids in the United States – have parents whose income would go up under a new minimum wage. When you count the parents whose wages would be indirectly affected, that rises to more than 11 million (or roughly one in six) children whose households would benefit from the increase.

Punishing the kids for having parents who themselves are little more than children, seems short-sighted and, to me, extremely immoral.

You have to break the cycle, and charity won't cut it, and will never have the resources to do so, conservative mythology be damned.

This is one aread where we need more government spending, and quite a bit more of it, to properly address.

[TeyshaBlue]

at those number are for exactly $7.25. Plenty of ADULTS are under $10/hour. the avg walmart associate is well under $20K/year ($10 x 2000)

Absolutely, which underpins the need for a living wage.

[TeyshaBlue]

Punishing the kids for having parents who themselves are little more than children, seems short-sighted and, to me, extremely immoral.

You have to break the cycle, and charity won't cut it, and will never have the resources to do so, conservative mythology be damned.

This is one aread where we need more government spending, and quite a bit more of it, to properly address.

I don't think a min wage push falls under the descriptor "government spending". It's almost entirely private sector driven.

[boutons_deux]

"It's almost entirely private sector driven."

duh, of course, AFTER the govt passes the minimum wage law.

Some conservatives, Repugs want to abolish the minimum wage, aka, War on Employees

[TeyshaBlue]

Your quoted fact does not negate Truthouts statement, based on another source:



Simply because the BLS didn't differentiat between "adults" (17 or younger) and minors.

Given that the ages 16-25 are 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 The statement "80% are adults" would seem to be validated.

If half are over 25 that is 50% of the minimum wage workers,
and
the ages 18-25, i.e. "adults" comprise most of the cohort of 16-25 year olds,
and,
I would guess, a disproportionate amount of workers compared to 16 and 17 year olds who, by and large, are still in high school,
Truthouts blurb is actually almost certainly accurate.

Better would be to acknowledge the skewness of youth, but not misleading, or inaccurate, it would seem, especially if 50% of minimum wage workers are over 25.

Looking at the tables, reveals 1.9 million 16-24 working at or below min wage.

Total min wage workers: 3.8 million. That's 50% @ 16-24. Of that 16-24 set, the 16-19 bracket is about 50%. So, the 16-19 is roughly 25% overall. Factor in the 20's to that and you might pop an additional point or two to the total.
I guess if you take the legal definition of adults as >21, then truthout is close but placed within a narrative of parents, which truthout deftly accomplished, it's completely misleading.

[TeyshaBlue]

"It's almost entirely private sector driven."

duh, of course, AFTER the govt passes the minimum wage law.

Some conservatives, Repugs want to abolish the minimum wage, aka, War on Employees



It doesn't cost a dime in gov spending to pass a min wage law.

[TeyshaBlue]

I don't think a min wage push falls under the descriptor "government spending". It's almost entirely private sector driven.

[CosmicCowboy]

It doesn't cost a dime in gov spending to pass a min wage law.

That's pretty much true. Government contracts are all under Davis Bacon and contractors have to figure paying stupid money (much more than prevailing local wages) for labor.

[TeyshaBlue]

mmmmmm...bacon

[boutons_deux]

"contractors have to figure paying stupid money (much more than prevailing local wages) for labor."

CC. Warrior on Employees, loves fucking over laborers

[TeyshaBlue]

smh

[CosmicCowboy]

"contractors have to figure paying stupid money (much more than prevailing local wages) for labor."

CC. Warrior on Employees, loves fucking over laborers




Boutons the forum moron as usual.

[RandomGuy]

I don't think a min wage push falls under the descriptor "government spending". It's almost entirely private sector driven.

I know, didn't meant to imply otherwise.

We need more social services to allow poorer kids to get the kinds of enrichment that tends to make rich kids so much more competitive, or at least not burden kids with the drawbacks of poverty. Either way will cost money, but be worth it in the long run.

Economically better off = fewer kids

If one hates the "welfare state", you need more of it in the short run so you need less of it in the long run. That is one of those seeming contradictions that simple-minded types have a hard time wrapping their heads around.

[RandomGuy]

Looking at the tables, reveals 1.9 million 16-24 working at or below min wage.

Total min wage workers: 3.8 million. That's 50% @ 16-24. Of that 16-24 set, the 16-19 bracket is about 50%. So, the 16-19 is roughly 25% overall. Factor in the 20's to that and you might pop an additional point or two to the total.
I guess if you take the legal definition of adults as >21, then truthout is close but placed within a narrative of parents, which truthout deftly accomplished, it's completely misleading.

Adults is 18 or up. The general legal defintion for contracts and voting. You can legally form a contract at 18, and that is the general age of majority.

Go back and re-check your figures, then the study that truthout is quoting is a lot closer to what hte BLS implies.

Further, TO, says "many" are parents, which again, is not misleading. They didn't say "most". Again not an unfair statement to make, especially if your entire point is that raising minimum wage will help some children and their parents that probably need extra income the most.

Offsettign this though, is the economic reality taht raisign the minimum wage would tend to reduce hiring of the very people you are tyring to help.

The kicker is by how much? More money to poor people = more velocity of money, and would that offset the economic drag.

Best data I have seen is "not really much at all".

The benefits are overall clearer than the costs, to me.

I would not mind a substantial hike over several years to see how it pans out, with some very careful studies of the effects.

[DarrinS]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-im_CKn9PPI8/T0dtSJ0lUFI/AAAAAAAAAzY/0vIyQ9SYpt4/s1600/abe-simpson-gif.gif

[boutons_deux]

When low paid employees, eg Walmart, retail, food service use public assistance, it is taxpayers subsidizing the employers' profits.

here's another way taxpayers subsidize mega-corps, eg, BigAg:


Agribusiness subsidies: lining whose pockets?


People everywhere are stepping up to the plate to force food and agriculture policies to serve us, not multinational corporations. Before looking at some advances and victories, let’s explore ways in which government support has shifted from farmers to some of the world’s biggest corporations.

The government used to set price floors for certain commodity crops, nonperishable staples like corn, wheat, rice, and cotton. The price floors acted as a minimum wage for farmers, regulating the lowest amount they could be paid for their products. Another government program, maintaining grain reserves, allowed farmers to store some grain crops in seasons when they overproduced. This meant that the reserves could be released into the market in less abundant future seasons. The regulation of extra grain helped prevent food shortages and price spikes.

But agribusinesses wanted to buy commodity crops, from which they make processed food products, as cheaply as possible. So they pressured legislators to end price-regulating policies. And they responded. In the 1970s, price floors and grain reserves were gradually eroded; by 1996, they were eliminated completely. Farmers had to lower their prices in response, to attract more customers, and to boost production to compensate for lost income.
To respond to the downward spiral of prices and keep farmers from going under, the government ramped up the subsidy system. Subsidies, which began in the 1930s during the Great Depression, use taxpayer money to give commodity farmers direct payments, tax breaks, subsidized insurance, and other financial support. These government payments make it possible for farms to continue selling their products cheaply without going out of business.

However, the real winners in the subsidy system are the corporations who are able to buy commodity crops from farmers for artificially low prices, yielding them even higher profits. Taxpayers foot the bill, underwriting billions in annual profits for agricultural corporations.

The mix of subsidies, together with the elimination of policies that protect farmers, has created such a skewed equation that some commodity crops are sold for even less money than it costs to grow them. This practice, called “dumping,” enables corporations to undercut farmers around the world. Between 2000 and 2003, for example, while the cost of producing rice was approximately $415 per ton, government subsidies allowed agribusiness companies (http://www.fao.org/righttofood/KC/downloads/vl/en/) to sell it overseas for just $275 per ton.

The whole system is kept in place by close-knit relationships between corporations and government. Corporations tempt legislators with campaign contributions, votes, and investment in their districts. In return, members of Congress give out subsidies to agribusiness and pass legislation that opens markets in their favor. A revolving door spins government officials into corporate positions and then back again.
The answer is not to throw out government subsidies. Eliminating this support system, without changing the underlying conditions that make commodity farms dependent on it, will not benefit farmers. And some subsidies, like grants for sustainable agriculture and tax credits for renewable energy conversions, can benefit small farmers.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/15865-seeds-of-change-shifting-national-agricultural-policies

[2centsworth]

I haven't seen the data where a minimum wage increase increase wage participation. If someone has that I would like to see it. As far as labor, the divide between the haves and have not continues to grow and it's simply from a lack of education, and I don't mean traditional schooling. As a society we are in a television trance that we need to snap out of. We need to start at the basics and work our way up. Here's an outline of what should be done.

1. Focus on educating the masses on the value of nutrition. The burden on our health care system and lost productivity at work can be directly attributed to the bad decisions most make in the kitchen. Liberals trying to dictate isn't the answer, but a huge public service campaign on the ill effects of refined sugars and processed foods is a huge start. We would save trillions if we would just lose some weight (68% of Americans are obese or overweight)

2. Start a "Redemption" campaign for people with criminal records. For instance, I know a very intelligent college educated person who was arrested for stealing goggles when he was 17. He is now in his 30s and is still ineligible for state licensing in certain fields. In his case it was a Mortgage Broker's license. How does lifetime employment discrimination make moral sense, especially since many minorities are raised in tough situations and make bad decisions when they are younger? However, I think everyone is entitled to a second chance. When it comes to employment, it's one strike and you're out in many cases. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTCRRFGr-IA

3. We need a Small Business Revival. 80% of new jobs are created in small to mid-size businesses. We need more! I'm open to whatever ideas on this front.

4. A basic college education should not cost more than $10,000. Universities need to make this happen.


just my 2cents

[CosmicCowboy]

:lmao:lmao:lmao

Get fucking real Boutons!

Have you priced corn, soy beans, or wheat lately? Obviously not.

[CosmicCowboy]

I haven't seen the data where a minimum wage increase increase wage participation. If someone has that I would like to see it. As far as labor, the divide between the haves and have not continues to grow and it's simply from a lack of education, and I don't mean traditional schooling. As a society we are in a television trance that we need to snap out of. We need to start at the basics and work our way up. Here's an outline of what should be done.

1. Focus on educating the masses on the value of nutrition. The burden on our health care system and lost productivity at work can be directly attributed to the bad decisions most make in the kitchen. Liberals trying to dictate isn't the answer, but a huge public service campaign on the ill effects of refined sugars and processed foods is a huge start. We would save trillions if we would just lose some weight (68% of Americans are obese or overweight)

2. Start a "Redemption" campaign for people with criminal records. For instance, I know a very intelligent college educated person who was arrested for stealing goggles when he was 17. He is now in his 30s and is still ineligible for state licensing in certain fields. In his case it was a Mortgage Broker's license. How does lifetime employment discrimination make moral sense, especially since many minorities are raised in tough situations and make bad decisions when they are younger? However, I think everyone is entitled to a second chance. When it comes to employment, it's one strike and you're out in many cases. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTCRRFGr-IA

3. We need a Small Business Revival. 80% of new jobs are created in small to mid-size businesses. We need more! I'm open to whatever ideas on this front.

4. A basic college education should not cost more than $10,000. Universities need to make this happen.


just my 2cents

:lmao

You realize we spend more than that per student per YEAR for K-12 education, right?

[Homeland Security]

We need more social services to allow poorer kids to get the kinds of enrichment that tends to make rich kids so much more competitive, or at least not burden kids with the drawbacks of poverty. Either way will cost money, but be worth it in the long run.I'm not quite sure how social services are going to deliver motivated, involved parents who talk to their kids and provide them experiences other than television.

If we're thinking out of the box, could we do something like a New Janissary Corps? That was proven to work for a few hundred years when the Turks tried it, at least until corruption and nepotism ruined it. One change I would make this time around is to eliminate the pederasty.

[TeyshaBlue]

Adults is 18 or up. The general legal defintion for contracts and voting. You can legally form a contract at 18, and that is the general age of majority.

Go back and re-check your figures, then the study that truthout is quoting is a lot closer to what hte BLS implies.

Further, TO, says "many" are parents, which again, is not misleading. They didn't say "most". Again not an unfair statement to make, especially if your entire point is that raising minimum wage will help some children and their parents that probably need extra income the most.

Offsettign this though, is the economic reality taht raisign the minimum wage would tend to reduce hiring of the very people you are tyring to help.

The kicker is by how much? More money to poor people = more velocity of money, and would that offset the economic drag.

Best data I have seen is "not really much at all".

The benefits are overall clearer than the costs, to me.

I would not mind a substantial hike over several years to see how it pans out, with some very careful studies of the effects.

I think the business community generally follows you on this. I don't think there's alot of pushback from them on a living wage package, unless it's something like $18-20/hr.:lol The incremental increase in cost is easily absorbed or passed on to the consumer. I'm not sure it would repress hiring, but it could with some of the smaller outfits perhaps. I agree with the cost:benefit.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I haven't seen the data where a minimum wage increase increase wage participation. If someone has that I would like to see it.

Australia's minimum wage is $15.00 an hour and their unemployment rate is around 5%. No idea what their labor participation rate is, but I'd bet it's much higher than the participation rate here.

[2centsworth]

CC there are universities that have 10k programs now

[2centsworth]

Australia's minimum wage is $15.00 an hour and their unemployment rate is around 5%. No idea what their labor participation rate is, but I'd bet it's much higher than the participation rate here.


Are they correlated?

[Wild Cobra]

I'm not a board liberal, and the lack of a living wage is one of the root problems.
No, the lack of a living wage is a symptom. Not the root problem.

Is McDonalds suppose to be a living wage?

[Wild Cobra]

Australia's minimum wage is $15.00 an hour and their unemployment rate is around 5%. No idea what their labor participation rate is, but I'd bet it's much higher than the participation rate here.
What are their free trade agreements and import tariffs like?

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

What are their free trade agreements and import tariffs like?
Seeing a so called libertarian campaign against free trade an for tariffs is pretty hilarious. I thought if you let the free market dictate everything that's when things do best?

[Wild Cobra]

Seeing a so called libertarian campaign against free trade an for tariffs is pretty hilarious. I thought if you let the free market dictate everything that's when things do best?
It isn't free trade when the table isn't level.

[Th'Pusher]

It isn't free trade when the table isn't level.
Explain why the free trade table isn't level.

[Drachen]

I haven't seen the data where a minimum wage increase increase wage participation. If someone has that I would like to see it. As far as labor, the divide between the haves and have not continues to grow and it's simply from a lack of education, and I don't mean traditional schooling. As a society we are in a television trance that we need to snap out of. We need to start at the basics and work our way up. Here's an outline of what should be done.

1. Focus on educating the masses on the value of nutrition. The burden on our health care system and lost productivity at work can be directly attributed to the bad decisions most make in the kitchen. Liberals trying to dictate isn't the answer, but a huge public service campaign on the ill effects of refined sugars and processed foods is a huge start. We would save trillions if we would just lose some weight (68% of Americans are obese or overweight)

2. Start a "Redemption" campaign for people with criminal records. For instance, I know a very intelligent college educated person who was arrested for stealing goggles when he was 17. He is now in his 30s and is still ineligible for state licensing in certain fields. In his case it was a Mortgage Broker's license. How does lifetime employment discrimination make moral sense, especially since many minorities are raised in tough situations and make bad decisions when they are younger? However, I think everyone is entitled to a second chance. When it comes to employment, it's one strike and you're out in many cases. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTCRRFGr-IA

3. We need a Small Business Revival. 80% of new jobs are created in small to mid-size businesses. We need more! I'm open to whatever ideas on this front.

4. A basic college education should not cost more than $10,000. Universities need to make this happen.


just my 2cents


Jesus Christ you won't get one iota of an argument from me on this one.

[boutons_deux]

Are they correlated?

sure they are.

The United Corporations of America, UCA's, hard push for "globalization" aka "free international trade", NAFTA ("giant sucking sound"), etc pitted US workers and their much higher standard of living against poor, sweat shop foreign workers in countries with the VRWC/Repug dream of no EPA, OSHA, regulations.

Coupled with the VRWC's union busting (St Ronnie busting the air traffic controllers after a 2 day strike told corps to bust all employees)/war on employees, US household income has basically stagnated since 1980 (St Ronnie started the VRWC shit ball rolling).

(btw, you ignorant racist boomer-haters should note that salary stagnation through the boomer's main earning decades of the last 45 years means they were paying less into SS, etc. Do you really think they did that intentionally? It's not boomers vs you ingnorant fucks, it's the 1% vs 99%, Class Warfare)

the "comparative advantage" (where every country exploits its specific advantages) of free trade is that foreign workers under non-regulating govts are much cheaper than US workers.

result: US mfrs subcontracted/bought from overseas (eg, Apple, Walmart) rather than make in USA, or they build factories overseas and import. Those jobs aren't EVER coming back freely.

[CosmicCowboy]

CC there are universities that have 10k programs now

I don't disagree at all that education should be cheaper. I know when I went to school my major required 146 hours and at least a third of it was crap that had nothing to do with my career choice. I really resented that shit. I remember one class that I was required to take was "Philosophy for Engineers". It was taught by some Luddite Moonbat from the Philosophy department that hated technology and industry. I hated that class so much that I made that cocksuckers life miserable just to get my moneys worth ( I was putting myself through school). He would make some stupid flat statement like "By the year 2000 mass transit will have replaced the automobile". I would respond with "You are out of your fucking mind. Mass transit can't possibly replace all forms of personal transportation". Then we would argue one on one till the class was over. He hated me but he took the bait every time. The rest of the class loved it. His tests were all essay. I would answer every question twice so he couldn't flunk me. I would say "this is the answer you are looking for" then I would perfectly regurgitate the crap he was spewing. Then I would say "this is the REAL answer" and I would point/counterpoint and destroy his argument. It was quite fun and he didn't dare flunk me because I was giving him the "correct" answers to his questions.

[RandomGuy]

I'm not quite sure how social services are going to deliver motivated, involved parents who talk to their kids and provide them experiences other than television.

If we're thinking out of the box, could we do something like a New Janissary Corps? That was proven to work for a few hundred years when the Turks tried it, at least until corruption and nepotism ruined it. One change I would make this time around is to eliminate the pederasty.

Mentors would be a good way to go, if you are looking for someone other than an overworked parent with two jobs. I find it hard to find the time myself.

[Wild Cobra]

Return to having more apprenticeship programs.

[boutons_deux]

educate teachers better, tougher entry/degree standards, and pay teachers a LOT more.

[RandomGuy]

I haven't seen the data where a minimum wage increase increase wage participation. If someone has that I would like to see it. As far as labor, the divide between the haves and have not continues to grow and it's simply from a lack of education, and I don't mean traditional schooling. As a society we are in a television trance that we need to snap out of. We need to start at the basics and work our way up. Here's an outline of what should be done.

1. Focus on educating the masses on the value of nutrition. The burden on our health care system and lost productivity at work can be directly attributed to the bad decisions most make in the kitchen. Liberals trying to dictate isn't the answer, but a huge public service campaign on the ill effects of refined sugars and processed foods is a huge start. We would save trillions if we would just lose some weight (68% of Americans are obese or overweight)

2. Start a "Redemption" campaign for people with criminal records. For instance, I know a very intelligent college educated person who was arrested for stealing goggles when he was 17. He is now in his 30s and is still ineligible for state licensing in certain fields. In his case it was a Mortgage Broker's license. How does lifetime employment discrimination make moral sense, especially since many minorities are raised in tough situations and make bad decisions when they are younger? However, I think everyone is entitled to a second chance. When it comes to employment, it's one strike and you're out in many cases. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTCRRFGr-IA

3. We need a Small Business Revival. 80% of new jobs are created in small to mid-size businesses. We need more! I'm open to whatever ideas on this front.

4. A basic college education should not cost more than $10,000. Universities need to make this happen.


just my 2cents

Agreed.

As for nutrition:

Simply tax the kinds of foods that contribute to the health problem, and use the funds to pay for the added health costs.


This is a very sound economic policy, because as it stands now the health problems are a negative externality of those kidns of foods. The true cost is shifted to society in the form of unhealthy people's medical bills and the people who make hte foods get to profit from that cost transfer.

Tax the foods, and let the free market do its magic. Make vegatables cheaper than cheeseburgers.

[RandomGuy]

educate teachers better, tougher entry/degree standards, and pay teachers a LOT more.

Agreed.

The big bad socialists in Finland have this model, and unastonishingly one of the best educational systems in the world.

Pay enough to attract the talent and motivated people.

Not a difficult thing to wrap ones head around.

At the same time lefties need to give up some union power so that administrators can get rid of the non-performers. Hell, we have them even in non-union states like Texas. Wife had to do a short semeter intern with a science teacher who was... um... not overly topically knowledgeable to put it mildly.

[RandomGuy]

I don't disagree at all that education should be cheaper. I know when I went to school my major required 146 hours and at least a third of it was crap that had nothing to do with my career choice. I really resented that shit. I remember one class that I was required to take was "Philosophy for Engineers". It was taught by some Luddite Moonbat from the Philosophy department that hated technology and industry. I hated that class so much that I made that cocksuckers life miserable just to get my moneys worth ( I was putting myself through school). He would make some stupid flat statement like "By the year 2000 mass transit will have replaced the automobile". I would respond with "You are out of your fucking mind. Mass transit can't possibly replace all forms of personal transportation". Then we would argue one on one till the class was over. He hated me but he took the bait every time. The rest of the class loved it. His tests were all essay. I would answer every question twice so he couldn't flunk me. I would say "this is the answer you are looking for" then I would perfectly regurgitate the crap he was spewing. Then I would say "this is the REAL answer" and I would point/counterpoint and destroy his argument. It was quite fun and he didn't dare flunk me because I was giving him the "correct" answers to his questions.

Strangely enough business in the US is seeing liberal arts classes as encouraging the kinds of critical thinking that is needed in the modern workplace.

http://www.las.illinois.edu/students/career/business/
http://insidebiz.com/news/today-there-value-liberal-arts-education

[boutons_deux]

neoliberalim (aka VRWC taking over universities as businesses and vocational schools and marginalizing tenured faculty)


The Neoliberal Assault on Academia

The New York Times, Slate and Al Jazeera have recently drawn attention to the adjunctification of the professoriate in the US. Only 24 per cent (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/education/gap-in-university-faculty-pay-continues-to-grow-report-finds.html) of university and college faculty are now tenured or tenure-track.

Much of the coverage has focused on the sub-poverty wages (http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120706/OPINION03/120709706/desimone-adjunct-professors-america-146-s-modern-slaves) of adjunct faculty, their lack of job security and the growing legions (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/2012820102749246453.html) of unemployed and under-employed PhDs. Elsewhere, the focus has been on web-based learning and the massive open online courses (MOOCs (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=massive-open-online-courses-transform-higher-education-and-science)), with some commentators celebrating and others lamenting their arrival.

The two developments are not unrelated. Harvard recently asked its alumni to volunteer their time as "online mentors" and "discussion group managers" for an online course. Fewer professors and fewer qualified - or even paid - teaching assistants will be required in higher education's New Order.

Lost amid the fetishisation of information technology and the pathos of the struggle over proper working conditions for adjunct faculty is the deeper crisis of the academic profession occasioned by neoliberalism. This crisis is connected to the economics of higher education but it is not primarily about that.

The neoliberal sacking of the universities runs much deeper than tuition fee hikes and budget cuts.


http://www.alternet.org/education/neoliberal-assault-academia?paging=off

Combined with the VRWC's push to dumb down (segregate) K-12 with for-profit/indoctrinating charter schools, the future of America is looking worse without end.

[Nbadan]

Agreed.

The big bad socialists in Finland have this model, and unastonishingly one of the best educational systems in the world.

Pay enough to attract the talent and motivated people.

Not a difficult thing to wrap ones head around.

At the same time lefties need to give up some union power so that administrators can get rid of the non-performers. Hell, we have them even in non-union states like Texas. Wife had to do a short semeter intern with a science teacher who was... um... not overly topically knowledgeable to put it mildly.

A good teacher can get an equal paying job with far less hours and more pay and benefits and...with a lot less stress. So consequently, there are a lot of inexperienced teachers out there...we need to find a way to thin the horrible teachers, that's true, but we also need a way to keep the good teachers in the classroom...TX has an army of good certified teachers who don't teach anymore....

[Nbadan]

CC there are universities that have 10k programs now

No doubt..the TEXAS A&M campus in San Antonio....

[Nbadan]

educate teachers better, tougher entry/degree standards, and pay teachers a LOT more.

Unless you have about 25 kids at home at any time, you have no idea what teachers have to deal with....

[boutons_deux]

25 is too many

check the students/teacher here in best TX HSs (not that it's super accurate)

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/texas

[boutons_deux]

The BLS Jobs Report Covering April 2013: Lowest Labor Force Participation since 1978/9, weekly hours and wages down (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/05/the-bls-jobs-report-covering-april-2013-lowest-labor-force-participation-since-19789-weekly-hours-and-wages-down.html)

Short Form: In seasonally adjusted terms, 165,000 jobs and unemployment dropping to 7.5% are OK, but not great results. At that job creation rate and taking population growth into account, it would take about 2 years to reduce by one million those currently unemployed. The BLS estimates current unemployment at 11.815 million. I calculate it at 20.542 million. So perhaps I should not say OK but rather next to nothing is being done to address the jobs situation.

In unadjusted terms, April was a good month, but then it should be. It is in the heart of the spring hiring season. Employment grew by 1,026,000, and 878,000 of that was full time employment. Even so, 2013 is shaping up to be worse than 2012 for employment and similar to the first half of 2012 for jobs.

In general, workers are not doing well. The jobs being created are mostly of poor quality. 19.5% of them are part time. Weekly hours and wages declined last month. And the BLS continues to underestimate the number of those without jobs by between 9 to 9.5 million.

So an OK month, but one which will do little to resolve the jobs crisis which is both a crisis of numbers and quality.

The labor force participation rate, that is the ratio between the labor force as measured by the BLS and the potential labor force (NIP) remained unchanged from March both adjusted and unadjusted. Seasonally unadjusted, it was 63.3%. This is the lowest participation rate since May 1979, that is 34 years ago. Unadjusted, it was 63.1%, the lowest participation rate since May 1978 (35 years ago). There are 3 major factors weighing on these numbers: 1) the bad economy reducing the number of employed, 2) baby boomers beginning to retire out of the labor force also depressing employment, and 3) the BLS undercount of those it does not count as unemployed although they do not have a job but would work if a job was available.

www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/05/the-bls-jobs-report-covering-april-2013-lowest-labor-force-participation-since-19789-weekly-hours-and-wages-down.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+(naked+capita lism)

[boutons_deux]

The Old vs. the Young
The Great Recession has been a disaster for the employment prospects of the young. Almost one in four teenagers looking for a job still can’t find one.
Americans 16 to 24 years old suffered the sharpest drop in employment between 2008 and 2010, and jobs for young workers have barely ticked up since then.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/03/business/economy/03economix-age-growth/03economix-age-growth-blog480.png

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/03/business/economy/03economix-share-employed/03economix-share-employed-blog480.png


http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/the-old-vs-the-young/?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

The Idled Young Americans


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/05/sunday-review/05Leonhardt/05Leonhardt-articleLarge.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/05/opinion/05leonhardt-chart/05leonhardt-chart-articleInline-v4.jpg


HE idle young European, stranded without work by the Continent’s dysfunction, is one of the global economy’s stock characters. Yet it might be time to add another, even more common protagonist: the idle young American.

For all of Europe’s troubles — a left-right combination of sclerotic labor markets and austerity — the United States has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs. It’s not just Europe, either. Over the last 12 years, the United States has gone from having the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among large, wealthy economies to having among the lowest.

The grim shift — “a historic turnaround,” says Robert A. Moffitt (http://econ.jhu.edu/directory/robert-a-moffitt/), a Johns Hopkins University economist — stems from two underappreciated aspects of our long economic slump. First, it has exacted the harshest toll on the young — even harsher than on people in their 50s and 60s, who have also suffered. And while the American economy has come back more robustly than some of its global rivals in terms of overall production, the recovery has been strangely light on new jobs, even after Friday’s better-than-expected unemployment report. American companies are doing more with less.

“This still is a very big puzzle,” said Lawrence F. Katz (http://scholar.harvard.edu/lkatz/biocv), a Harvard professor who was chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration. He called the severe downturn in jobs “the million-dollar question” for the economy.

Employers are particularly reluctant to add new workers — and have been for much of the last 12 years. Layoffs have been subdued, with the exception of the worst months of the financial crisis, but so has the creation of jobs, and no
one depends on new jobs as much as younger workers do.

For them, the Great Recession grinds on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/sunday-review/the-idled-young-americans.html?_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/sunday-review/the-idled-young-americans.html?_r=0)

[RandomGuy]

Australia's minimum wage is $15.00 an hour and their unemployment rate is around 5%. No idea what their labor participation rate is, but I'd bet it's much higher than the participation rate here.

Australia's current economic climate has more to do with China's rapid growth than anything else.

[RandomGuy]

The Idled Young Americans


http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/05/sunday-review/05Leonhardt/05Leonhardt-articleLarge.jpg

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/05/05/opinion/05leonhardt-chart/05leonhardt-chart-articleInline-v4.jpg


HE idle young European, stranded without work by the Continent’s dysfunction, is one of the global economy’s stock characters. Yet it might be time to add another, even more common protagonist: the idle young American.

For all of Europe’s troubles — a left-right combination of sclerotic labor markets and austerity — the United States has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs. It’s not just Europe, either. Over the last 12 years, the United States has gone from having the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among large, wealthy economies to having among the lowest.

The grim shift — “a historic turnaround,” says Robert A. Moffitt (http://econ.jhu.edu/directory/robert-a-moffitt/), a Johns Hopkins University economist — stems from two underappreciated aspects of our long economic slump. First, it has exacted the harshest toll on the young — even harsher than on people in their 50s and 60s, who have also suffered. And while the American economy has come back more robustly than some of its global rivals in terms of overall production, the recovery has been strangely light on new jobs, even after Friday’s better-than-expected unemployment report. American companies are doing more with less.

“This still is a very big puzzle,” said Lawrence F. Katz (http://scholar.harvard.edu/lkatz/biocv), a Harvard professor who was chief economist at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration. He called the severe downturn in jobs “the million-dollar question” for the economy.

Employers are particularly reluctant to add new workers — and have been for much of the last 12 years. Layoffs have been subdued, with the exception of the worst months of the financial crisis, but so has the creation of jobs, and no
one depends on new jobs as much as younger workers do.

For them, the Great Recession grinds on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/sunday-review/the-idled-young-americans.html?_r=0 (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/sunday-review/the-idled-young-americans.html?_r=0)



I am hoping this will solve itself as the boomers retire. They pull every body else up the chain as they do. The senior people retire, and 40+ers like me move into the positions they had as junior level managers, and we get replaced by the 20+ who have been out of college a few years, and they get replacedy by the people a tad younger.

Can't quantify this, but this is what I would guess is happening as the labor participation % drops.

This may deserve a thread of its own. FIgure out something to do about it.

[boutons_deux]

"as the boomers retire"

a LOT boomers, say age 50+, have been forcibly retired for 5 years, make up a huge portion of the long-term unemployed, are working part time and/or for wages way under what they used to make, and have seen a huge increase in male suicides. Youth unemployment can't be laid on boomers.

anybody, any age, who is long-term unemployed is having a much harder time finding employment.

[Winehole23]

http://www.newgeography.com/content/003761-toward-a-self-employed-nation

[boutons_deux]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CYKrvw3-_zg/UbHqY66HRoI/AAAAAAAAang/AjXIyCjp9Fs/s1600/EmployPop2554May2013.jpg


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z6f4mlCUpSQ/UbHqb-GrE7I/AAAAAAAAano/3xcd4KkFjO8/s1600/EmployRecAlignMay2013.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bg6ulzvUBl0/UbHUEZKAWwI/AAAAAAAAanI/t1FpP8KBPCc/s1600/EmployPopMay2013.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-an-ww6C0DjA/UbHqqE8ZkcI/AAAAAAAAaoA/-gcCq2prpCk/s1600/StateLocalMay2013.jpg

[boutons_deux]

First Quarter Of 2013 Saw Largest Wage Drop Ever (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/07/2121581/first-quarter-of-2013-saw-largest-wage-drop-ever/)
The first three months of 2013 saw wages fall 3.8 percent – the largest drop in hourly pay in the 65-year history of that statistic (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/us-pay-drop_n_3391664.html) – despite an increase in worker productivity. With high unemployment freeing employers from fears that their employees will turn elsewhere, the U.S. recovery has been marked by a decoupling of rising productivity from stagnant wages.

The gloomy milestone partly reflects the predominance of low-wage service jobs (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/07/2119331/jobs-report-low-wage/) in the slow, steady streak of job growth since the recession. Increasing the minimum wage, as progressives in Congress hope to do (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/30/2078111/workers-strike-in-seventh-city-as-congressional-progressives-launch-campaign-to-boost-wages/), could help counter downward wage pressures at the bottom of the earnings ladder.


The recovery has been far more pleasant at the other end of the income spectrum. CEO pay is up to record highs for the second year in a row, at $9.7 million per year on average (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/05/22/2049161/ceo-pay-new-record-2012/) in 2012. In fact, 121 percent of total income gains from 2009-2011 went to the top one percent of earners (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/12/1579211/1-percent-121-gains/) – meaning everyone else lost ground.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/06/07/2121581/first-quarter-of-2013-saw-largest-wage-drop-ever/

The 1%'s Class War continues to mop the battlefield with the scalps of workers.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Australia's current economic climate has more to do with China's rapid growth than anything else.

Australia has had positive growth for the majority of the last 50 years. This GDP growth from au.gov.

http://archive.treasury.gov.au/documents/1239/IMAGES/02_Part_1-5.gif

Australia does it better.

[Winehole23]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/08/unemployment-vs-share.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/01/this-graph-calls-the-entire-economic-recovery-into-question/

[2centsworth]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/08/unemployment-vs-share.jpg

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/01/this-graph-calls-the-entire-economic-recovery-into-question/

"And instead of doing anything to help those people get back to work, Washington canceled the payroll tax cut, permitted sequestration to go into effect, and is now arguing about whether to shut down the federal government — and possibly breach the debt ceiling — in the fall."

This would get more attention if the writer placed a picture of himself wearing a hoodie on the page.

[boutons_deux]

GDP and stock market, reflecting mainly the fortunes of the 1%, are also shitty indicators of the 99%'s status.

eg, if median income had kept pace with GDP for the last 40 years, the median income would be over $90K instead of half of that. Just another indicator of USA's World Champion Inequality.

America is fucked and unfuckable, and nobody has any data, politics or political movement or party, to the contrary.