The Long-Term Unemployed Are Doomed

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/11/long_term_unemployment_doom.html

by sheri • 13 years ago

47 137 13 years ago

bassclef• 13 years ago

the majority haven't been looking for work.. I was long term unemployeed.. I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job.. it paid shit, but at least i was no longer on the tit of america.

The problem with long term unemployment is the same issue I ran into the other day on an elevator.. One girl asks another girl, "did you get a job yet?" the girl responds, "Giiiirrrrrl, da gubament gonna give me 2 hundred dollas a week, why i gonna get a jerb?"

Get em off the tit and get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all.

jiggy2011• 13 years ago

Great idea, now all we have to do is make jobs for them!

bloat• 13 years ago

Nice self righteous racial stereotyping there - thanks.

talmand18• 13 years ago

It's not stereotyping if it's a quote, but then again, we don't know the accuracy of the quote.

sfg• 13 years ago

Has the comment been edited? It does not, as it currently appears on my screen, mention any particular race for the people in the dialogue given.

keiferski• 13 years ago

Man, if only all the minorities and women would learn how to code, they'd be fine, just like me.

zenogais• 13 years ago

Satire? We can only hope

Strilanc• 13 years ago

Another solution, that doesn't starve the unfortunate, is basic income. It solves the negative marginal return on the effort of finding a job not by giving nothing, but by unconditionally giving even after you get the job.

This shifts the system away from incentivizing you to be unemployed, and towards countering the centralization of wealth.

talmand18• 13 years ago

Actually, providing basic income will eventually mean a large number of people simply choosing to not work at all. That may be a good thing or bad thing, I don't know for certain and I believe it's one of those things that might be good for one area but bad for another.

My natural inclination is that such a system will create a huge incentive for a percentage of people to willingly choose to be unemployed for most of their lives. If the amount isn't enough as a "living wage" amount then people will either adjust to make it work for them or they will clamor for the powers that be to increase the amount given to make it "livable". I'm sure it would soon become a "right" of some sort.

I'm not saying that such a system would inherently be a bad thing, but it has to be designed with that outcome being considered and the consequences it implies.

If by countering the centralization of wealth you mean take from Paul to give to Peter, then you're just trading one problem for another.

001sky2• 13 years ago

I sent out a minimum of 10 resumes everyday until I got a job

Not sure what century this was in, but the article is basically saying this strategy is a fail. The resume's get screened to "auto" inbox->Trash, without being read, considered, interviewed, etc. Now, if you got those leads because of your network...you're clearly using a strategy that is not widely available to many people (that's why its a network: it's exclusive, not open). So, in essence you are blaming them for not being priviledged. Again, this is a moot point. These people need to pick a strategy that is <open to them>. Saying you have options that they lack is not a viable piece of advice to them (duh!). You might as well tell them to go to Harvard or MIT and become a programmer. While it's true tha "would" help, its also true that it has zero probability of <actually> helping. In otherwords, it's a humble-brag. It's not advice or critique (or a good comp).

smtddr• 13 years ago

>get em working or they starve and die.. either way win win for us all.

Speak for yourself. Other people starving & dying isn't a win in my book.

tdees40• 13 years ago

The jive talk really adds to your story.

nate_meurer• 13 years ago

In all seriousness, I think you're in the wrong forum here. There are many political web fora where "starve and die" rhetoric is an accepted standard, and I think you'll find the level of discourse there to be more to your taste.

AlisdairO• 13 years ago

Given the radical increase in the number of long term unemployed, what data is it that makes you believe that the number of people wanting to work has gone down, rather than the availability of jobs?

djur• 13 years ago

You might want to look up "peasant's revolt" to see what happens to rich people when the poor see their only option is to starve and die. Throw in "Marie Antoinette" while you're at it.

tokenadult2• 13 years ago

I live in the part of the country that the article author recommends as a place to go to find work if unemployed. The long-term unemployed persons I know best came out of high school with very limited job skills (barely literate or numerate) and have spent their free time while unemployed mostly pursuing hobbies that do not further develop their job skills. (Some of the saddest cases I know are people who had problems with alcohol or other drug abuse in the early years of their working life.)

Many of those people would indeed be employable in St. Cloud, Minnesota or Mankato, Minnesota in entry-level, manual-labor jobs, but unemployment benefits have, till now, provided enough income to allow living independently without having to go to work each day. I'll see what happens to the people I know best, locally, when the "emergency" extensions of unemployment benefits at long last cease. There are definitely employers in this frigidly cold state that are still on the lookout for willing workers, and I wish well to everyone seeking work. There are probably quite a few opportunities yet available to the people who will look for them.

batbomb3• 13 years ago

Most of the cities are in North Dakota jobs are assuredly oil field related. As such, in some sense they are an unemployment paradise if you don't have a family, because it's low-skill, subsidized housing (and often food) work, and easily pays 3 times what you would get at mcdonalds.

bsirkia2• 13 years ago

What do you think is keeping people from moving to North Dakota? I actually don't totally know the answer, are the travel expenses just too high?

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

Actually Fargo is a city growing incredibly rapidly and it has nothing to do with oil:

http://www.fargomonthly.com/blog/boom/

$44,564 – The average annual wage in Fargo, according to Job Services ND. The average for North Dakota is $49,088. The national average is $42,979.

121,017 – The civilian labor force in the Fargo metro area as of June 2013, according to Job Service ND. There are 4,344 unemployed people creating an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent.

6,713 – Number of Fargo jobs advertised online as of Aug. 11, 2013, according to Jobs Service ND.

87,347 - The total number of employees in Fargo, according to Jobs Services ND.

Add in the fact the cost of living is probably the lowest in the country and you have a great recipe for success, even for people who have been unemployed for a long time. If I had been unemployed for a while, Fargo would be the first place I would start looking.

vectorpush3• 13 years ago

but unemployment benefits have, till now, provided enough income to allow living independently without having to go to work each day

This just isn't a reality in most cases, however, I see that Minnesota caps the maximum weekly benefits at about $600 (before taxes) per week, which would definitely allow a single individual with no dependents to live independently without needing a job (if they receive that much). I am skeptical of the argument that unemployment payments discourage individuals from working, having once collected UI myself, I know first hand how frustrating and humiliating it is trying to make ends meet with the a paltry UI stipend, but when I consider ~$2000 a month, long term abuse seems a lot more viable.

batbomb3• 13 years ago

Historically Oil booms help too. Most the places he mentioned are going through a fracking renaissance. More importantly, it's low skill and high pay, but often cold and demanding work (say Midland isn't cold to the roughneck wrestling with the well in January.)

bluedino2• 13 years ago

People need to move to where the work is. Maybe the government could offer a tax break or stipend to get people to move (and somehow try not to let that get abused), I'd be surprised if the transportation industry isn't lobbying for it already.

For generations, people moved. To Oregon/California just because the east was too crowded and didn't have much opportunity. To the midwest to work in the tire, steel, and auto plants. To the south for the new auto and manufacturing plants.

And now it will be to the plains for jobs in the construction and energy industries.

How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to? How long will they use the excuse "I'm upside down on my mortgage?" when they aren't going to be right-side up anytime soon and aren't working as it is?

Pack your shit up and move and send money back home to your family if you don't want to bring them. The long-lasting unemployment benefits just keep 'workers' stuck where they are, and as a result it keeps their families and future generations stuck in the same place.

gilrain2• 13 years ago

How long can people use the excuse "I can't afford to move", when you can't afford not to?

For this post, I will be a hypothetical long-term unemployed person.

Moving to even a low-cost area is going to be at least $1000 for deposit on an apartment and utilities, plus the first month of rent. I'll also need groceries and transportation or gas.

Keep in mind that my credit, assuming I even have any, is maxed out because I have already been using it to supplement my living expenses and job hunt for the past few years.

I can't afford to move, and that is not a fucking excuse.

talmand18• 13 years ago

As a frequent mover, it is interesting that people just say "move!" without considering such things. If you don't have the capital to move, then it's likely not going to happen. Thankfully we're not to the point of people moving to a new area to essentially be homeless in hopes of finding a job.

Macsenour• 13 years ago

If your new work is more than 50 miles from your old work, you can write the moving expenses off your taxes. I'm not a tax expert, but I believe that is still correct.

gilrain2• 13 years ago

The long-term unemployed do not have taxes to write off against, since they are not making any money. A write-off does not help them pay moving expenses in the least.

zaroth• 13 years ago

The government does offer a tax dediction for job related moving expenses. In practice that means the government pays for X% of your moving costs where X = your federal tax rate.

So it doesn't help people who already pay no federal taxes, which is almost everyone we're talking about here. But anyone who lives in the US and pays no federal taxes is getting a pretty amazing deal to begin with.

See: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc455.html

drcube2• 13 years ago

Go listen to some Woody Guthrie, sir.

bsirkia2• 13 years ago

The idea of relocation assistance has always been something that interested me. I often split time between Vermont and NYC, and don't totally get why there aren't more programs to help people living in a rough, low-income housing projects get to VT (or one of the other areas), where you can easily find jobs and a nice place to rent for $300/month.

padobson4• 13 years ago

It sure would be nice if there was a mass transit system that could get people from NY to Vermont in a few hours without requiring a month's wages to do it.

woodchuck642• 13 years ago

"What it has gotten you is a UI check. Take away the check, there's no point in bothering"

Wait, the sole reason these people were looking for a job was to get a steady unemployment insurance check?

Ensorceled6• 13 years ago

Yes. They are not getting jobs. They can't get jobs because there are few jobs and those jobs aren't going to the long term unemployed.

But, to get UI you MUST be looking for a job.

So, they are fruitlessly searching for jobs they know they won't get solely to get the cheque. They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque.

buckbova4• 13 years ago

"They will stop wasting their time once there is no cheque."

Will they really? Would you take your family out into the streets?

I suspect they'll double down on their efforts and possibly take a job that they suspect was "below them".

For the rest, it's off to the welfare line.

avemg• 13 years ago

The obvious response to that is to suggest that these people are looking just hard enough (wink,wink) to keep their benefits but not actually get hired by anyone and once you take away the free ride they'll start making an honest effort to find work.

I don't agree with that, but I find it hard to refute when it comes up. Are there any good, fact-based arguments that prove this idea to be false?

aggieben2• 13 years ago

Taking away the UI check is just as likely to incentivize people to look for jobs they can actually get, as opposed to constant, documented "looking" so they can continue to draw a check.

lnanek2• 13 years ago

Yep, I've seen that quite a bit. For example, one guy walked into Barnes and Noble, asked for a job application, they said they weren't hiring, he said it's OK, he just needs it to get his UI check.

nickff5• 13 years ago

Yet another instance where the government encourages activity, not productive activity.

loudmax• 13 years ago

The point of them registering as unemployed was the UI check. Many of them had already given up looking.

3pt14159• 13 years ago

We'd probably save a lot of money in the long term if we helped people with mental illness. Many who are long term unemployed or out of the work force all together, are so because of addictions or depression.

Then again, there actually are some legit lazy people that will only ever work enough to buy hydro and a roof over their head.

tekalon3• 13 years ago

Or too old, or out of date skills and don't know/have resources to learn new ones.

cantastoria3• 13 years ago

It would be interesting to see what the socioeconomic/educational attainment breakdown of the long-term unemployed looks like (Link anyone?).

I think the assumption is that most of people in this group are unskilled high-school drop outs but I wonder how many of them "have some college" or a degree and are just unwilling to "lower themselves" to working on an oil pipeline or any other kind of work associated with being blue collar. The assumption that people will take any job they can get, at least in my experience, is just plain wrong. For instance (I know this is just anecdotal) but I know quite a few people in NYC who attended elite schools that are perfectly happy to collect unemployment while they wait for a high prestige job opening (e.g. "I'm waiting for the New Yorker to have a job opening"). The thought that a government grant would get these people to go work in an oil field in South Dakota is absurd most of them are horrified at the thought of leaving Brooklyn. I was thinking of this article from Mike Rowe:

http://profoundlydisconnected.com/cnn-viewer-has-questions/

"Right now, in the manufacturing sector alone, 600,000 jobs are currently available."

If that is indeed the case there is something else going on.

geogra44• 13 years ago

At what wage? That's what I say to those claiming that hundreds of thousands of jobs are unfilled in any sector, be it IT consulting firms clamoring for h1-bs or agriculture firms looking for cheap fruit pickers.

cantastoria3• 13 years ago

Ok but if your problem is that no one will look at your resume because you haven't worked in five years surely one of these jobs will solve that at the very least.

nickff5• 13 years ago

If immigrants can survive on (and desire) the income provided by the jobs which you deem to be 'low wage', why should Americans disdain and forgo the positions?

Put another way, you seem to suggest that because people cannot find jobs they want, they should be considered unemployable; Why is this true?

ForHackernews6• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, if you do take a job that's "beneath" what your qualifications would suggest, you'll sometimes wind up torpedoing your career prospects going forward.

I think a developer who was "consulting" or "freelancing" (read: unemployed) for the past six months would get more callbacks than one who'd been working at McDonald's, or needed to telecommute from North Dakota.

I suppose you can mitigate that effect by leaving it off your CV, but working a "crappy" job is still going to take away time and energy that could otherwise be spent improving your skills for your desired career.

cantastoria3• 13 years ago

This is the typical response (and there is evidence to back it up) but then are these people really deserving of long term unemployment benefits? If you've been unemployed for five years and I say to you "hey there are jobs in xyz" and your response is that taking that job will "ruin your long-term career prospects" (it's almost funny) maybe unemployment is no longer serving it's intended functions (as a stop-gap between jobs).

Ensorceled6• 13 years ago

This kind of skirts the problem. There are more unemployed than there are jobs. There are far more under-employed people working at McDonalds that would like better jobs.

Those jobs don't exist. They just don't. The jobs are in China or they are being done better by mechanical sorters at Amazon.

Even if we figure out a relocation plan, that solves a minor part of the problem. Worse, those low skilled, high risk employees are now in another part of the country, first to be laid off and with no social network once they are.

There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.

aggieben2• 13 years ago

There is NO solution that doesn’t involve either make work programs OR a guaranteed income OR people homeless and starving.

I think that's a pretty narrow view. There are other possible alternatives, like: new businesses opening; completely new industry forming that doesn't require high skill levels from its workers. Given an individual situation, I don't think it would be too difficult to imagine additional scenarios.

I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty the long-term unemployed are facing, but I don't think it's constructive to throw up your hands and despair, either.

nickff5• 13 years ago

It is also likely that when these open positions are filled, more will become available.

Ensorceled6• 13 years ago

I can imagine that happening but it's seems silly to base policy on some imaginary scenario where a new industry starts up that that needs literally millions of lower skilled employees to function.

When was the last time that happened? Every current industry is shedding employees. New industries are either small or require a high skill set.

ForHackernews6• 13 years ago

Maybe make-work programs aren't a bad idea? American infrastructure is in a really bad way, something like the Civilian Conservation Corps could do a lot of good repairing and improving rail lines, highways, bridges, and the electrical grid.

maerF0x0• 13 years ago

This article fails to recognize that there are more ways to earn an income than "get a job" . Write a (book|song|game|movie), grow some food, sell a service, invent something, sell some clothes.

One year I was laid off and "employed" 3 days later because I became a freelance contractor. For the right price many many skills are marketable.

I as a businessman would never turn away someone who had the nerve, need and drive to come to me and say "I'll bust my ass for half my usual price, just dont let me starve".

talmand18• 13 years ago

I'll take a shot at addressing your suggestions.

Write a book, song, game, movie? For income? Are you serious? Even if you are of the type to pull that off, how will you support yourself as you create these things? It's not the same as a job with a weekly income.

Grow some food? Actually, more people should do this. Hopefully the local government won't stop you from doing it because your neighbors whine about you growing tomatoes by the side of your house.

Sell a service? Plausible, if you have a skill that fits a niche because otherwise you're probably already entering a highly competitive and low margin industry. Also, depending on the service you sell, the local government may want to have a word or two with you which will likely require capital.

Invent something? See the part about writing a book, song, game or movie above. Same thing, if not worse because lawyers.

Sell some clothes? True, you could sell just about everything. In some cases that might be ideal because you might be able to downgrade your lifestyle just a tad to lower your expenses.

But good for you that you had a skill that translated into a freelance contractor market. That doesn't work for everyone. I've never heard of freelance contractor cashiers for instance. I guess they could learn a skill first but, again, how do you support yourself during this time?

It's good for you that you're willing to exploit someone's skills at half their value but not every business looks at it that way. I would imagine most managers would not want to hire someone at lower value or being over-qualified for because often that means the job is often a stepping stone to a better job. They see it as a risk of losing the investment they made in an employee that left at the first opportunity.

Not that I'm saying your suggestions are necessarily bad ideas. It's just not always so easy a solution, such as people who suggest just picking up and moving to where the jobs are. With a little thought one can see that things are not always as simple as what they sometimes should be.

DanielBMarkham• 13 years ago

"...Mailing unemployment insurance checks to people who aren't so much unemployed as unemployable is obviously not an ideal public policy. But simply doing nothing for them is cruel and insane..."

Let's look at our choices presented by the author. 1) Each of us gives money from his pocket to pay people to do things nobody else wants them to do, whether sitting on the couch, sweeping the streets, whatever, or 2) Be insane and cruel.

Certainly such a discussion must have a bit more nuance than that, right?

I'm not going to dive into the argument, because there will be plenty of it, mostly non-productive. I just wanted to point out the premise the article is written around. Such premises do not make for good discussions by people of varying opinions.

nickff5• 13 years ago

The author is obviously presenting a false-choice.

One option he does not even mention is that there could be an open an honest public debate about what to do, and at least make a new program (not UI), which would specifically and accountably address his issues.

Another thing which is not directly addressed is that when UI ends, people get jobs. There is a large amount of literature to support this. In many cases, it is simply not worth it for people to find a job, because UI and other benefits can pay up to 90% of someone's fully employed salary.

worldsayshi• 13 years ago

I don't get. Just create more jobs! There are plenty of things that need to be done and those unemployed shouldn't be left in the cold so we are going to pay them something anyway. The only "valid" reason there are able and unemployed people is "to scare the shit out of the middle class".

tekalon3• 13 years ago

Who will create these jobs, part of the issue is that no one is willing to pay the amount it takes to create the jobs (pay rate, training, taxes, insurance). Unless absolutely necessary, companies don't want to hire extra people just to 'create jobs'.

talmand18• 13 years ago

The usual answer is government. Many people have a negative view towards such things but can be useful if done correctly. Such as infrastructure projects that need to be done anyway. But alas, some people in the system don't agree with such a thought.

crazy1van• 13 years ago

The country failed these people first by letting the labor market stay so slack for so long that they became unhirable, and now we're going to fail them again.

This seems suspect. People lose jobs for specific reasons. Maybe a specific sector is shrinking. Maybe automation is replacing workers of a certain skill set. Maybe cheap labor elsewhere caused your employer to move.

Blaming "the country" for failing these people "by letting the labor market stay so slack" is meaningless in its vagueness.

twoodfin2• 13 years ago

I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02. A milder recession to be sure (though you wouldn't know it from the political rhetoric at the time), but one that nonetheless hit employment hard. Within three years net employment was back where it had previously been, and the unemployment rate was back down in the 4%'s. There hadn't been massive spending; most of the deficit increase was lowered taxes and lowered revenue.

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

I'm also curious how Yglesias would explain the lack of "slack" in the labor market after the recession of '01-'02.

I'm not sure how Yglesias would, but to me the answer is obvious. The 2001 recession (official dates are still, IIRC, March-November 2001, though there was, around 2004, talk that the start date maybe should have been pinned somewhat earlier, I don't think it was ever actually revised), was, as you note, much shorter and, in part because there was a lot more access to credit, which supported a quick rebound of aggregate demand and a return to expansion and better top-line employment numbers (a number of factors, include tax policy changes which shifted the distribution of gains upwards, made it a fairly hollow expansion in which the bottom three quintiles all saw income declines and the next quintile was flat, however, which, help set the stage for a deeper recession with a much slower recovery when the bottom fell out of the housing market, since it was a lot harder for demand to rebound.)

geogra44• 13 years ago

We're living in a 21st century economy with 20th century ideas on work. The economy doesn't need 40+ hours from everyone to produce what we need. I agree with some others here that a Basic Income at a reasonable level would help out a lot.

kfcm• 13 years ago

Ames, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Columbia, MO. NCAA Div I university.

Lincoln, NE. NCAA Div I university.

Iowa City, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Fargo, ND. NCAA Div I university.

Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA. NCAA Div I university.

Mankato, MN. NCAA Div II university.

St. Cloud,MN. NCAA Div II university.

Rochester, MN. The town Mayo built/healthcare.

Notice a pattern here? At least a third of the "metro" locations mentioned are homes to NCAA Division I or II universities. Low unemployment? Yep. Low-paying jobs (even for technical positions)? Yep. (A friend of mine from one of the above Div. I "metros" says semi-tongue-in-cheek: so many grads love the area and want to stay, a convenience store job requires a Masters).

Rochester is essentially healthcare through Mayo. If you're not a healthcare professional, good luck. IBM used to have a major presence there, but I don't know how much now.

padobson4• 13 years ago

What's most interesting about this is that higher education (through student loans) and healthcare (through medicare, medicaid, social security, etc) are two of the biggest industries subsidized by the government.

twoodfin2• 13 years ago

If unemployment continues to drop or even accelerates its downward trend without a corresponding drop in the labor force participation rate, can we at least consider the possibility that some fraction of the "long term unemployed" would always remain unemployed up until the moment when they ceased being paid not to work?

Or, if you want to be more generous, ceased facing a massive effective marginal "taxation" rate on their first couple thousand dollars of monthly income.

I don't mean this as a moral judgment. I can imagine a host of situations where being paid $20,000 a year or so to evaluate your employment options and otherwise spend a lot of time doing non-wage-earning activities like spending time with your kids would make perfect sense.

I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill.

hfsktr• 13 years ago

"I know that one condition of receiving unemployment benefits is to be looking for work, but I'd be surprised if that is hard to fulfill."

I was on unemployment for a little over a year. I had to apply to 2 jobs a week and every so often (only twice) I had to spend 3 hours (I felt a waste of time but I am sure there were people who did need the help) at employment services to some sort of meeting (called something like 'workforce re-entry evaluation') where they gave advice on how to fill out applications etc. They also had classes there that counted towards the job search requirements (learn to use web, word, excel, etc).

You had to bring your job search records for them to look over also. I know there are people who just sit on their ass but I really would have preferred to be earning some money. I felt bad enough but then to have people say 'just get a job' like I wasn't even trying. Half of them didn't believe that the gas station send a rejection letter (at least they had the courtesy).

One of the problems was that this area isn't a tech hub. The bigger cities are but just not paying the bills so you can move away and see if a job works isn't a good solution (driving 6 hours for an interview at your own expense is always fun though).

I got way less than $20K that year. At least it helped show how little I could live^H^H^H^H survive on.

jasonkester• 13 years ago

It's comforting to know that this, along with so many other things that most people have to take for granted, doesn't apply to software developers.

Our little corner of the world is still so employee-friendly that it's really hard to damage your career in any meaningful way if you're truly, provably good at what you do. Certainly not by taking the odd five years off to start a startup, travel the world, or play pickup basketball.

You'll still have your network when you decide to come back. Those guys will be nicely distributed across dozens of tech companies, all of which need developers like they need air.

vectorpush3• 13 years ago

It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software.

In addition to that, increased competition from a global remote work force as well as increased immigration sponsored by the tech lobby is going to crush western developer affluence.

In another 15 years, things may be looking pretty grim for the average developer.

ahomescu1• 13 years ago

It won't last forever. Software development and deployment is becoming easier and easier every day. Between open source, infrastructure in the cloud, PaaS & SaaS, and the plethora of new tools/libraries/frameworks/languages that debut to address specific problems with lightning focus, it has become trivial for an individual to pull off what was impossible for a team 15 years ago. This doesn't even consider the explosion of packaged software targeting business needs directly. I don't think we're so far away from a world where software developers can only realistically find work at software companies as demand for software developers is displaced by... software.

Couldn't you have said the same thing 15 years ago? I don't think anything significant has changed since then.

Another problem with this thinking is software is never done, it just evolves and changes. It also needs some serious maintenance. Even if the job of software developers will be done by software, someone still needs to maintain and improve that software (unless we get self-writing software, which I don't see any time soon).

Another thing that keeps changing is hardware. Switching from computers to phones and tablets and the web created completely new markets for phone and web apps (written in Java/JavaScript) which weren't there a few years ago. Who's to say there aren't going to be new markets a few years from now? (For example, we'll need developers to write Google Glass apps).

In addition, even after all this evolution, current frameworks and languages are still horrendous. The most popular languages right now are C++, Java, JavaScript and PHP, all of them horrible to program in (more or less). I think there's still plenty of work to do in this direction.

shams93• 13 years ago

You also have older workers although well educated a nd skilled, pushed out of the economy via ageism but still far from retirement.

fragsworth• 13 years ago

Long-term unemployed have always been doomed.

However, a high unemployment rate (suppose 15%) means that the average person is out of a job 15% of the time. In most cases, this is not really that devastating. The problem right now is the unemployment benefits last so long that you can stay out of a job to the point that you become irrelevant.

Learning new skills takes effort, and usually requires you to take a pay cut as you get an entry-level job in a new field. Everyone can do it, though. Instead, though, we are incentivising long-term laziness by granting money to people who aren't working. I know at least two people who are just living off their unemployment checks and not making any effort to find real work.

If the unemployed are getting a check, then people who are employed should get that same check while employed. I think that's the only way to keep the incentive to work. (This goes back to the idea of a minimum guaranteed income)

prodigal_erik2• 13 years ago

Apocryphally, most people are only a couple of paychecks ahead of their bills, and would have to default on something when faced with 15% less income.

billyjobob• 13 years ago

I'm from a country with a welfare state, where if you are unemployed the government pay your rent and give you a small amount of money to buy food until such time as you are employed again. Not understanding how the American system works, I find this article confusing. It sounds like there is a time limit on how long someone can claim unemployment benefit? So what happens after this time runs out, they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death? Even if you don't care about them on a human level, that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people. Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel.

lisper4• 13 years ago

they just get kicked out of their home and starve/freeze to death?

Yeah, pretty much, though most of them can subsist for a long time on handouts before they actually die.

that sounds like it would be massively expensive in terms of increasing crime levels and providing hospital care for all the dying people

Yeah, pretty much. This is one of the reasons the U.S. has the highest incarceration rates and health care costs of any industrialized country by a wide margin.

Honestly it sounds like something out of a dystopian cyberpunk novel.

If only it were fiction.

nsxwolf2• 13 years ago

This is insanely inaccurate so I downvoted you. There are many, many kinds of assistance available to people. It's not an either/or situation where you run out of unemployment and then your next option is death by exposure and starvation. Come on.

nsxwolf2• 13 years ago

There are other welfare support programs besides unemployment insurance. They're just not all wrapped up in a neat bow by the central government. There's housing and food assistance and other programs at the federal and state levels, as well as charities, church food pantries, etc.

In reality, very few people end up on the streets to starve and freeze to death.

lisper4• 13 years ago

That depends on what you mean by "not very many." Accurate numbers are hard to come by, but as of the mid-2000's there were an estimated 750,000 homeless people in the U.S. That number is almost certainly higher now.

Most of them manage to survive without starving or freezing because food and shelter are sporadically available. But it certainly doesn't extend their life span.

The Long-Term Unemployed Are Doomed

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