General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Sitting in a restaurant today I realized how much trouble we are in for [View all]Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)The jobs base has been eroded so far that it is the source of our fiscal problems.
And it's just a joke to think housing values can stabilize when so many of the younger people are facing such poor employment prospects, rising expenses, and are burdened with student debt on top of it.
I pulled some stats from BLS.
Full time jobs - as of Feb, 114,408,000. As of March 2001, 114,006,000,
but the population has increased by at around 10%.
2001, 285 million, 2012, estimated 313 million.
Part time workers:
Feb 2012, 27,576,000
Feb 2001, 23,542,000
20-24 year-olds working (in any type of employment):
Feb 2012, 13,395,000
Feb 2001, 13,449,000
25-54 year-olds working at all:
Feb 2012, 94,056,000
Feb 2001, 98,729,000
55 and over working:
Feb 2012, 30,187,000
Feb 2001, 18,516,000
We don't have the replacements coming up behind us to take over the load, and it's because there aren't decent jobs for them. Everywhere I go for years now, I see middle-aged and younger adults working jobs that teenagers used to do.
Workers aged 16-19:
Feb 2012, 4,371,000
Feb 2001, 7,038,000
I guess we pushed them right out the door!
If you go to the Census historical income tables, in 2010 dollars per capita incomes did not increase at all for a decade, even discounting the last two years of income drops:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/
This is some frightening stuff. The reason social benefits are rising so quickly is because we're a rapidly aging society without adequate jobs for the young:
When the non-government income base goes up so much more slowly than social needs, you get a crunch:
Obviously the solution has got to be to build the underlying economy.