The Devastation Of America’s Working Class

After years of exposing, month after month, the truth about the U.S. labor market – its conversion into a part-time (in 2010!), low-paying job market where Millennials refuse to work (as the job market reality is gruesome so instead they opt to load up on record amount of student loans) and where older Americans, instead of enjoying are forced right back into the labor force leading to record numbers of workers over the age of 55 (thanks to ZIRP crushing the value of their and a refusing to participate in an HFT- and central-bank rigged stock market), the mainstream media, having grown tired of spinning the bullshit optimistic propaganda, has finally moved to the “tinfoil” side, and has done something it normally wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Tell the truth.

Enter the NYT with a shocking dose of truthfulness, one which goes to show just one thing: how over the past decade, notwithstanding the tripling of the S&P from its post-Lehman lows on the back of $11 trillion in central bank liquidity, America's working class has been not only skewed beyond recognition, but is now absolutely devastated. And all thanks to the Federal Reserve skewing the value of money so much that those who should be working aren't, and those who should be retiring, are serving you Starbucks.

Here are the facts, long overdue but facts nonetheless, from the NYT:

  • At every age, the chances of not working have changed in the last 15 years.
    • Teenagers are far more likely not to work.
    • Older people are retiring later and working more.
  • In the late 1960s, almost all men between the ages of 25 and 54 went to work. Only about 5 out of every 100 did not have a job in any given week. By 2000, this figure had more than doubled, to 11 out of every 100 men. This year, it's 16. 
  • About 13 percent of the increase in prime-age nonworkers, including a substantial fraction of the younger ones, comes among people who say they are in school.
  • Much of the school-related rise in nonwork, at least since 2007, appears to be less about staying in school than it is about not being able to find part-time jobs (don't tell that to the trillion+ in student loans though).
  • Some men in school say they would like to be working part time but they've given up looking for a job. Others may stop going to school entirely if they could find a job, or if the college wage premium were smaller.
  • About 20 percent of the new nonworkers say they are disabled, a category whose numbers have risen particularly for workers above age 50.
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