1 in 6 American Men Between Ages 25-54 Are Not Working

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2014-05-30 17:17

Article here.

'"There are currently 61.1 million American men in their prime working years, age 25–54. A staggering 1 in 8 such men are not in the labor force at all, meaning they are neither working nor looking for work. This is an all-time high dating back to when records were first kept in 1955. An additional 2.9 million men are in the labor force but not employed (i.e., they would work if they could find a job). A total of 10.2 million individuals in this cohort, therefore, are not holding jobs in the U.S. economy today. There are also nearly 3 million more men in this age group not working today than there were before the recession began," the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee claim.

"Although defenders of the current economy attribute shrinking labor force participation to the increasing pace of retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, these new statistics above confirm a trend that Barron’s recently diagnosed: 'The ratio of those over 55 in the workforce actually ticked up'—in other words, older Americans are being forced to return to work in a poor economy to make ends meet while many younger Americans simply aren’t working at all. In short, there is an unprecedented supply of working-age Americans who do not hold jobs."'

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Visit the US Bureau of Labor Stats (the BLS), particularly at this page: http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ln . Now check the box next to "Unemployment Rate - 20 Yrs. & Over Men - LNS14000025" and click "Retrieve data" at the bottom of the list.

As of Apr. 2014, the BLS says the male unemp. rate is 5.9%.

If I am right, this stat is actually reflective of men aged 20-64, with 65 being the presumed retirement age. So it is saying that, excluding men outside the labor force (the BLS excludes people who have "dropped out" of the labor force, meaning they have been unemployed for so long it's presumed they stopped looking for work -- well, above-the-table work, anyway), 5.9% of men who *want* to work are not working. (Personally I don't buy that whole "dropped out" thing. More like just-plain-gave-up-after-5,000-rejections.)

The Senate Budget Cmte's GOP members are, according to the article, saying that 1/6 of _all_ men 25-54 YO are not employed, including 1 in 8 who have "dropped out" of the workforce.

OK, so to exclude the 1/8 of men not looking for work, rather than have to actually do some grade school level calculations, I use Google to get the answer soon enough: 1/6 is .1666, or 16.66%. 1/8 = .04166, or 4.166%. Subtract the second from the first and you get 12.494%.

So the GOP members of the Senate Budget Cmte are saying 12.494% of men between 25 and 54 are unemployed, but not (yet) "dropped out of" the labor market (well, officially speaking). But we're only talking of that age range. Could it be that men between 20 and 24 and men between 55 and 64 are doing SOOO much better than the 25-54 year-olds that they make up for what looks to be a rather stark divergence in quoted stats between the two sources?

How about the perm. disabled? That may be a factor. What %age of men in that group could be accounted for due to perm disability? Even if it's 2%, the final stat is still over 10%. And I for one don't buy the idea that men between 20 and 24 and those between 56 and 64 make up for the disparity by having such higher rates of employment that the 25-54 crowd.

So is the BLS reporting correctly, or are the GOP Senate Budget Cmte members reporting correctly? Or neither? Or both, depending on how closely-refined the definitions of each category of person are? "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics," as Mark Twain wrote. I am about as convinced that the BLS under Obama appointee Erica Groshen, former VP of the Fed Reserve Bank of NY, reports correct stats about unemployment for any given group of people as I am of the veracity of any given set of stats spat out by any device found on the Feminist Hooey Machine. But as for Congressoids of either party and what they say about anything... I am not much more confident there, either.

Until I think the gov't can be trusted to tell me the truth about anything significant regardless of whether or not it serves their purposes, I'll go with the following: "A recession is when you're neighbor is unemployed. A depression is when you are unemployed." Cynical and self-centered. Yes. Typical of a man. =)

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-06-02 02:55