Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
President Trump, like President Obama before him, point out the low unemployment rate as a measure of success.
What they don’t point out are masses of people on welfare via fraudulent disabilities, people in school wasting money in dead-end retraining exercises, people who have simply given up looking for a job, and people in forced retirement needing Social Security payments to survive.
A team of researchers from Princeton, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester discusses another class of individuals who are not working but are not counted as unemployed: People, primarily young men who are addicted to games. For such individuals, games provide a fantasy world that is far more enjoyable than the real world.
Please consider their report on Leisure Luxuries and the Labor Supply of Young Men.
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Between 2000 and 2015, market hours worked fell by 203 hours per year (12 percent) for younger men ages 21-30, compared to a decline of 163 hours per year (8 percent) for men ages 31-55. These declines started prior to the Great Recession, accelerated sharply during the recession, and have rebounded only modestly since. We use a variety of data sources to document that the hours decline was particularly pronounced for younger men.
Not only have hours fallen, but there is a large and growing segment of this population that appears detached from the labor market: 15 percent of younger men, excluding full-time students, worked zero weeks over the prior year as of 2016. The comparable number in 2000 was only 8 percent.
A natural question is how these younger men support themselves given their decline in earnings. We document that 67 percent of non-employed younger men lived with a parent or close relative in 2015, compared to 46 percent in 2000.
One avenue to gauge how younger men perceive their fortunes is to use survey data on happiness. In this spirit, we complement the patterns in hours, wages, and consumption with data on life satisfaction from the General Social Survey. We find that younger men reported increased happiness during the 2000s, despite stagnant wages, declining employment rates and increased propensity to live with parents/relatives. This contrasts sharply with older men, whose satisfaction clearly fell, tracking their decline in employment.
Annual Hours and Employment Rates
Zero Weeks Worked
Real Wages
Two Questions
1. The study found gaming trends apply to younger men, not older men and not women. Do women more than men like to live in the real world?
2. Is happiness a function of increased gaming or a reflection on changing attitudes of millennials in general towards material things?
The research report ties in nicely with Growing Number of Companies Complain About Inability to Find Workers: So Why is Wage Growth So Low?
People, like electricity or water, take the path of least resistance.
Make it easier to get by without working than it is by working and what do you expect?
After all, work is hard and leisure time is easy.
Parents, especially mothers, are enablers. Years before my daughters graduated HS they were well aware they either go to college (or some type of continuing education) or they pay rent. Can’t pay rent, fine, you get a couch to sleep on and all electronics (yes, TV, cell, radio whatever) is cut off. No car privileges either. Get your ass a job and work enough hours to pay rent. Rent = $400/month. Wifey and I save all that rent and we will give it back to them when they either go back to school or leave the nest.
This is a simple situation to fix. An application of common sense.
Stop paying for their Free Shit. No Phones, No Internet,No Shelter and No Food.
Guaranteed, they will work.
So my son is back from a year working in FL. He is in his
old bedroom upstairs. He has one yr. left for college. Two
months in I yell upstairs, “get a job.” And he does. He begs
a guy to hire him, “I’ll do anything, paint, clean the toilets,
whatever you want.” Owner takes pity and hires the boy.
20 years later, the boy continues to be the manager. His “buy in”
is paid off, his retreat property is paid off, his fancy truck is paid
off and he leases his car. Expensive condo sold/he rents an apt.
Three months in to the job, the owner invites me and the younger
boy to visit before the place opens. He tells me/us that the boy
is his best hire ever. Totally polite, great with people, always
beats expectation and other great stuff. Owner said he wanted
to meet the Mom that produced the boy. I felt mighty good
that day!!
Never enable non-action. The children end up depressed, and may
take a bad path. Worst, you get stuck with them and their dirty
laundry. Launch em’ I say, and launch em’ high.
I had to put the hammer down on my son. He’s moved out now and gainfully employed, but from 2014-2015 he would do nothing but game online, screaming and yelling to all hours. I had enough, and would actually shut the wireless down at night. It was ridiculous.
He ended up admitting it was an addiction and really had a hard time giving it up. Until he had to actually pay his own way, feed himself, and pay for car insurance, then the story changed.
If the parents don’t make them fend for themselves, they won’t
If you have no responsibilities (family), life can be very cheap for a single male if they want it to be. It doesn’t take much to live on especially if you have a cheap place to live.