Young White Men Without College Are Dropping Out Of Work Force

[Swammerdami]

Reports are coming in the young white men without college degrees are dropping out of the work force. This is a demographic that heavily votes Republican.

...
The study, conducted by Pinghui Wu, a researcher at the Boston Fed, found that men without a college degree are more likely to stop working or seeking work when their expected earnings fall in comparison to other workers. For these men, jobs aren't just a source of income; they're a source of social status.

That's especially true for white men, Wu writes, and younger men, who see a job with limited pay growth — which they believe could affect their marriage prospects and social status — as worse than no job. So what are they doing instead? Wu cited research showing that prime-age men who are not in the labor force spend twice as much time on leisure activities and sleeping, compared with labor force participants.

Thanks for this, Charlie.

@Bomb#20 — What do you think of this? Does it affect your view of "income inequality"?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Unions work for a while but most union companies end up destroyed, eaten by non-union competitors.

When facts don't agree with your opinions, just state your opinions as fact, eh Loren?

In my neck of the woods union membership and clout is about vanished. The businesses that are still unionized have much lower membership. The companies outsourced much of the work because it was so difficult to maintain productivity and be competitive if they didn't.

But as I've said repeatedly a company that is unionized needed that union to protect its employees from exploitation. So it's no wonder that those employees, given more power, then turned the tables to a degree.

My last thirty years of employment were in a non-unionized shop, half that time in management. I certainly preferred it to the jobs I had prior that occurred in unionized companies. I think unions were necessary in their golden age. My experience tells me they aren't as necessary anymore. Maybe that will change down the road.

 

[laughing dog]

1. I'm retired.
2. I've never belonged to a union in my life. Except for the Mother's Union, which I assured my children was real when they were kids.

I also am familiar with labor history in the US from the 20th century forward. I've lived through a lot of it, actually.

That experience gives you a perspective that someone in a different hemisphere cannot have.

Unions were an important force in improving the material well- being, health and life expectancy of workers. Much of what workers take for granted today is the result of hard won gains by the labor movement. Gains which are being eroded. Unfortunately, there are too workers who are either myopic, or who have their heads up their asses, or who are too busy supporting their households to realize this.

Unions do need to make a better case for membership with this new audience that has little experience or knowledge of exploitive workplaces.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Unions do need to make a better case for membership with this new audience that has little experience or knowledge of exploitive workplaces.

Some laws need to change so that Unions are not legally forced to defend mediocrity and corruption in their ranks. The unionized companies I worked in were so fucked up that it was impossible to terminate anyone. Eventually, however, it became financially and economically necessary to take such cases to the wall. The company had nothing to lose and was never going to change the culture unless it did.

Unions that are not about employee safety, quality in service and manufacturing, delivery and all those things that make companies profitable deserve to die because any company that is not about those same things also ought to die.

 

[Toni]

Unions do need to make a better case for membership with this new audience that has little experience or knowledge of exploitive workplaces.

Some laws need to change so that Unions are not legally forced to defend mediocrity and corruption in their ranks. The unionized companies I worked in were so fucked up that it was impossible to terminate anyone. Eventually, however, it became financially and economically necessary to take such cases to the wall. The company had nothing to lose and was never going to change the culture unless it did.

Unions that are not about employee safety, quality in service and manufacturing, delivery and all those things that make companies profitable deserve to die because any company that is not about those same things also ought to die.

Unions need to be advocates for workers’ rights, including adequate compensation. Management does an excellent job looking out for the interests of management—and owners/share holders. I write that as someone who fully expects my retirement to be funded by retirement investment accounts: stocks and bonds.

Increasing the disparity in wealth/earnings between the most wealthy and the majority of working Americans endangers every aspect of our society.

 

[Elixir]

My first time-clock job forced me to join UAW. When I asked what my job had to do with automobiles I was told it had to do with aerospace.
I was heliarc welding bits and spurs for cowboys. Some of those bucking broncs can really launch you!

 

[Metaphor]

1. I'm retired.
2. I've never belonged to a union in my life. Except for the Mother's Union, which I assured my children was real when they were kids.

I also am familiar with labor history in the US from the 20th century forward. I've lived through a lot of it, actually.

So, you never belonged to a union. Evidently you did not see the value prospect in belonging, either.

 

[Metaphor]

My first time lock job forced me to join UAW. When I asked what my job had to do with automobiles I was told it had to do with aerospace.
I was heliarc welding bits and spurs for cowboys. Some of those bucking broncs can really launch you!

Do you think it is fair that, in your case, you had to join the union to work?

 

[Metaphor]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

Bomb#20 isn't math challenged. His mathematics is correct. Lowering the income of Americans to more closely match the world average would reduce worldwide income inequality. That would be true of other high-income countries too but none of them have anything like the population of the U.S.

 

[Toni]

1. I'm retired.
2. I've never belonged to a union in my life. Except for the Mother's Union, which I assured my children was real when they were kids.

I also am familiar with labor history in the US from the 20th century forward. I've lived through a lot of it, actually.

So, you never belonged to a union. Evidently you did not see the value prospect in belonging, either.

None of my former employers were unionized. Two for certain really needed to be but being very young and without many resources (which is why I worked for low pay and terrible working conditions) also meant that I was struggling enough for survival that unionizing never occurred to me. I would have been fired immediately if management had gotten a whiff. They violated labor laws regularly and with impunity.

My last employer: It is a very large concern, employing over 50,000 employees. There actually are some categories of employees who are unionized. Generally speaking, I was treated well, paid well, and had good benefits: there was no need to form a union. Despite the good pay and benefits, there was a shortage of people to work in my particular field. Training (on top of degrees earned) was expensive and took time. They treated people well because it was the ethos of the institution and also because it was in their interests to retain employees.

Had my workplace been unionized, I certainly would have joined. Or, at that point in my life, worked to form one if one was needed. In fact, I frequently spoke about the benefits of a good union. But only an idiot would fail to recognize that a major reason that I enjoyed all of those benefits and good pay was directly because of the work of unions.

I have a few family members who are union members, though. For different and very good reasons. One belongs to an effective union that has done a good job negotiating for pay, benefits and working conditions. Another is perhaps not quite as effective but is doing a decent job. Another is not a very strong union and only recently have wages been increased--due to the pandemic, rather than the union. Still lots of mandatory overtime, poor to mediocre working conditions, etc.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Unions need to be advocates for workers’ rights, including adequate compensation.

I guess the key word there is "adequate." Too many of the union positions in places I worked were vastly over rewarded. I'm not in any way against adequate pay that affords a worker housing and lots of other good things. But what is wrong with working eight hours for eight hours pay, particularly when the pay is extremely good? Just work. Do whatever is in the best interests of your employer that day. Don't tell your employer something isn't your job. You are there because the people who hired you need you to get their product out the door. It's pretty simple.

But unions fail miserably, totally in this regard. For the most part union leadership acts like being cooperative is an act of betrayal. I never did get this antagonistic attitude. In my experience it is this failing that has cost unions their loss of influence and power. It's why companies build facilities away from such conditions. For anyone who has not experienced these toxic working union environments they will not understand. But it isn't hard for me to understand because I lived it and saw how it prevented companies from being competitive and profitable.

 

[Bomb#20]

Do you think the average medieval Kings felt better about their place in society than the average minimum-wage worker in America today?

The kings.

Who probably clicks a higher number on a Life Satisfaction survey? An American taking home $1400/month, or a Cambodian taking home $800?

The Cambodian. At $1400/month most of the American's income is probably going for rent. With rental prices in the U.S. three times higher than in Cambodia, the Cambodian probably eats better than the American.

Let's see if you can answer those questions. Then we'll consider yours.

...For these men, jobs aren't just a source of income; they're a source of social status.

That's especially true for white men, Wu writes, and younger men, who see a job with limited pay growth — which they believe could affect their marriage prospects and social status — as worse than no job. So what are they doing instead? Wu cited research showing that prime-age men who are not in the labor force spend twice as much time on leisure activities

So, pretty much the same as obesity being a disease of the poor -- yet more proof of how mind-blowingly effective modern capitalism is at satisfying people's needs and curing the ancient curse of poverty, our principle inheritance from Mother Nature. The human race's anthem is:

I was spawned in a ditch
By a mother who left me there,
Naked and cold and too hungry to cry;
I never blamed her.
I'm sure she left hoping
That I'd have the good sense to die!​

Capitalism fixed that. Capitalism made it possible for not just medieval kings but ordinary people to turn down jobs with limited pay growth and spend their time having fun.

and sleeping, compared with labor force participants.

Thanks for this, Charlie.

@Bomb#20 — What do you think of this? Does it affect your view of "income inequality"?

Speaking as a lifelong insomniac, I'm for anything that helps my fellow man get more sleep.

 

[Toni]

Unions need to be advocates for workers’ rights, including adequate compensation.

I guess the key word there is "adequate." Too many of the union positions in places I worked were vastly over rewarded. I'm not in any way against adequate pay that affords a worker housing and lots of other good things. But what is wrong with working eight hours for eight hours pay, particularly when the pay is extremely good? Just work. Do whatever is in the best interests of your employer that day. Don't tell your employer something isn't your job. You are there because the people who hired you need you to get their product out the door. It's pretty simple.

But unions fail miserably, totally in this regard. For the most part union leadership acts like being cooperative is an act of betrayal. I never did get this antagonistic attitude. In my experience it is this failing that has cost unions their loss of influence and power. It's why companies build facilities away from such conditions. For anyone who has not experienced these toxic working union environments they will not understand. But it isn't hard for me to understand because I lived it and saw how it prevented companies from being competitive and profitable.

It’s a lot more understandable to understand the attitude of not working beyond your job specifications if you know and understand the history of unions and the fact that unions need to protect other unions, not just themselves. Of course it is possible for there to be corruption in unions. They are comprised of people and people are imperfect.

 

[Bomb#20]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

The U.S. median income is $31,000. The World Bank's standard for total destitution is $2,000. Your argument appears to assume there aren't any income levels between $31,000 and $2,000.

 

[Elixir]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

The U.S. median income is $31,000. The World Bank's standard for total destitution is $2,000. Your argument appears to assume there aren't any income levels between $31,000 and $2,000.

“Marginally poor?”
You spoke of average, not median, but that will do. If everyone with <31k income were driven to destitution, it certainly would not reduce income inequality, but would definitely drive down average income. So -

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

… is FALSE.

 

[Swammerdami]

Here are the ten biggest strikes in U.S. history, according to Investopedia. I've prepended the White House incumbent's name, to make the chronology more transparent.

• Cleveland-22, 1886 - 200,000 workers strike against Jay Gould's railroads seeking better pay, better hours, better conditions. Gould, one of the 3 or 4 richest Americans at that time but often regarded as despicable, prevailed. Knights of Labor dissolved, with AFL emerging
• Cleveland-24, 1894 Pullman - the Pullman Palace Car Company, a manufacturer of railroad cars, cut the already low wages of its workers by about 25 percent but did not introduce corresponding reductions in rents and other charges at Pullman, its company town near Chicago, where most Pullman workers lived. As a result, many workers and their families faced starvation. When a delegation of workers tried to present their grievances about low wages, poor living conditions, and 16-hour workdays directly to the company's president, George M. Pullman, he refused to meet with them and ordered them fired. [Pullman was one of the two dozen or so richest Americans at the time.]
  
  Spoiler: Details

  The ARU had won a strike a few months earlier against the Great Northern Railway Company. ... When the ARU gathered in Chicago in June for its first annual convention, the Pullman strike was an issue on the delegates' minds.
  
  A great deal of sympathy existed in Chicago and elsewhere for the Pullman workers, who were seen as common men and women tyrannized by an abusive employer and landlord. The question was how the ARU could support the workers, who, after all, did not exactly work on the railroads. One plan was to refuse to hitch Pullman cars to trains and to unhitch those that were already attached. Another idea was a boycott: ...
  
  Crucial to the success of any boycott would be the switchmen, who had joined the ARU in large numbers. The ARU's president, Eugene V. Debs, predicted that, once the switchmen refused to add or remove Pullman cars from trains, the railroads would fire them and try to replace them with nonunion workers, and that in turn would lead other union members to walk out in solidarity, thus bringing more and more trains to a halt.
  
  The scenario played out as Debs had predicted. On June 27, 5,000 workers left their jobs and 15 railroads were tied up. By the next day, 40,000 had walked off, and rail traffic was snarled on all lines west of Chicago. On the third day, the number of strikers had climbed to 100,000, and at least 20 lines were either tied up or completely stopped. By June 30, 125,000 workers on 29 railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars. The ARU had few locals in the East or the Deep South, but the boycott seemed remarkably effective everywhere else.
  
  Debs may have been pleased by the effectiveness of the boycott, but he was also alarmed by the anger expressed by the workers, which he feared could lead to violence. During the first week of the boycott he sent some 4,000 telegrams, hundreds every day, urging the ARU locals to stay calm and not to overreact.
  
  On June 29 Debs spoke at a large and peaceful gathering in Blue Island, Illinois, to gather support from fellow railroad workers. After he left, however, groups within the crowd became enraged, set fire to nearby buildings, and derailed a locomotive. Unfortunately for the strikers, the locomotive was attached to a U.S. mail train. That greatly upset Pres. Grover Cleveland in that the strike had now prevented the federal government from exercising one of its most-important responsibilities.
  
  ... Debs continued to urge restraint, but it was no use. Radical union organizers were silenced.... Debs, who had been trying to prevent violence, could no longer even send telegrams advising against it.
  
  President Cleveland ordered troops into Chicago; Governor Altgeld was outraged and immediately wired the president, saying, "Surely the facts have not been correctly presented to you in this case, or you would not have taken the step, for it seems to me unjustifiable." Despite Altgeld's repeated protests, Cleveland continued to send troops, even though the state militia seemed quite capable of handling the situation.
  
  Worried that, given the terms of the injunction, he could no longer exercise any control over the strikers, Debs at first welcomed the troops, thinking that they might maintain order and allow the strike and boycott to proceed peacefully. But it soon became clear that the troops were not neutral peacekeepers; they were there to make sure that the trains moved, which would inevitably undermine the boycott. The strikers reacted with fury to the appearance of the troops. ... 6,000 rioters destroyed hundreds of railcars in the South Chicago Panhandle yards.
  
  Troops and police killed between 4 and 30 people and wounded many others. Debs then tried to call off the strike, urging that all workers except those convicted of crimes be rehired without prejudice. The railroad cartel refused, hiring scabs. Eventually strikers were rehired if they pledged never to join another union.
• T. Roosevelt, 1902 Anthracite Coal - 150,000 UMWA workers striked for 5+ months. Roosevelt attempted to negotiate an end to the strike but was unsuccessful. Suceeding at the negotiation job was ... John Pierpont Morgan! The miners received a 10% wage raise, down from their 20% request.
• Wilson, 1919 Steel - 350,000 workers struck for 4+ months. U.S. Steel prevailed with propaganda that strikers were communist, Jews and/or pro-Chinese.
• Harding, 1922 Railroad Shop - 400,000 workers striked after 7-cent wage cut. Feds acted against strikers who settled for a 5-cent pay restoration.
• F. Roosevelt, 1934 Textiles - 400,000 strikers, failed.
• Truman, 1946 Mine Workers - 400,000 strikers. Truman fined the union and forced strikers back to work. Eventually the Krug-Lewis Agreement ceded some union demands
• Eisenhower, 1959 Steel - 500,000 strikers. Victorious.
• Nixon, 1970 Postal - 200,000+ strikers. Nixon attempted to thwart union, even having National Guard deliver mail. Union was victorious, getting 8% raise and more.
• Clinton, 1997 UPS Teamsters - 185,000 strikers. Victorious.

In my neck of the woods union membership and clout is about vanished. The businesses that are still unionized have much lower membership. The companies outsourced much of the work because it was so difficult to maintain productivity and be competitive if they didn't.

But as I've said repeatedly a company that is unionized needed that union to protect its employees from exploitation. So it's no wonder that those employees, given more power, then turned the tables to a degree.

My last thirty years of employment were in a non-unionized shop, half that time in management. I certainly preferred it to the jobs I had prior that occurred in unionized companies. I think unions were necessary in their golden age. My experience tells me they aren't as necessary anymore. Maybe that will change down the road.

Strikes were necessary to get better wages, hours and working conditions. Striking workers faced violence to win rights taken for granted today. As they got their way, the need for unions weakened.

But as the pendulum swung against unions and toward right-to-work laws and fire-at-will, wages have stagnated, and workers are being replaced with robots. In high-stress America, some young men stay home, sleep or game, rather than taking a low-paying job. A recent strike asked for reasonable sick leave, but was denied by Fed action.

Some political philosophers (including our own Bomb#20 perhaps?) want to outsource such work to Bangladeshis or Guatemalans.

 

[laughing dog]

Unions need to be advocates for workers’ rights, including adequate compensation.

I guess the key word there is "adequate." Too many of the union positions in places I worked were vastly over rewarded. I'm not in any way against adequate pay that affords a worker housing and lots of other good things. But what is wrong with working eight hours for eight hours pay, particularly when the pay is extremely good? Just work. Do whatever is in the best interests of your employer that day. Don't tell your employer something isn't your job. You are there because the people who hired you need you to get their product out the door. It's pretty simple.

But unions fail miserably, totally in this regard. For the most part union leadership acts like being cooperative is an act of betrayal. I never did get this antagonistic attitude. In my experience it is this failing that has cost unions their loss of influence and power. It's why companies build facilities away from such conditions. For anyone who has not experienced these toxic working union environments they will not understand. But it isn't hard for me to understand because I lived it and saw how it prevented companies from being competitive and profitable.

In my experience, companies tend to get the unions they deserve.

 

[laughing dog]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

The U.S. median income is $31,000. The World Bank's standard for total destitution is $2,000. Your argument appears to assume there aren't any income levels between $31,000 and $2,000.

Why would anyone think making Americans poorer improves worldwide inequality is even remotely relevant to the OP about young men dropping out of the US labor force?

 

[Elixir]

Why would anyone think making Americans poorer improves worldwide inequality is even remotely relevant to the OP about young men dropping out of the US labor force?

Maybe the hopelessness of ever becoming a megabillionaire is just too much for uneducated young folk?
Coincidentally, making our megabillionaires 'poorer' (into simple billionaires) could reduce global income inequality - depending on what happened to all those billions...

 

[Bomb#20]

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

I don't believe you are really that math-challenged.
Turning the marginally poor into the totally destitute (the apparent mission of the extreme right) does not in any way reduce income inequality.

The U.S. median income is $31,000. The World Bank's standard for total destitution is $2,000. Your argument appears to assume there aren't any income levels between $31,000 and $2,000.

“Marginally poor?”
You spoke of average, not median, but that will do.

I spoke of the average American, not the American with average income. I figure it doesn't make a lot of sense to say the average American is richer than 65% of Americans.

If everyone with <31k income were driven to destitution, it certainly would not reduce income inequality, but would definitely drive down average income. So -

anything that makes the average American poorer reduces income inequality.

… is FALSE.

Ah, I see where you're coming from. Sorry, I was speaking of marginal effects. If some process were to cause Americans making around 31k to become poorer, each dollar their income went down would reduce income inequality. But this phenomenon would as you note eventually go away if the process continued so long that their incomes went below the worldwide median income. Sorry to have been unclear.