Four in ten Americans decide to walk the Earth like Caine on Kung Fu

Common sense and easily accessible data suggest that the U.S.’s aging population is the main cause of the decline in workforce participation.

Anyone who’s taken a macro-economics class or listened to NPR when the government’s monthly “jobs report” comes out has been told that people who “stop looking for work” aren’t counted as part of the workforce for the purpose of determining the unemployment rate. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) defines workforce participation like this:

• The workforce participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either employed or unemployed (that is, either working or actively seeking work).

The workforce participation rate is often used as a caveat. For example if the unemployment rate drops, a commentator might say “but we have to be careful in assuming too much from the drop, because a significant number of people stopped looking for work and are no longer being counted as part of the workforce.”

And it’s a weirdly widely accepted concept. For example, here’s Sean Hannity, Fox News’ chief bloviator and secret blockhead from Gumby blaming Obama for the labor participation rate being at its lowest point since the 70s.

And here’s 538.com’s founder and level 25 nerdist Nate Silver showing the workforce participation rate over time in a graph, and noting that a small uptick in the participation rate may indicate that “the improving job market is gradually beginning to draw more Americans off the economy’s sidelines.”  

But there are two things about this concept that have never sat well with me.

First, the idea that at some point a healthy but unemployed person may simply get too frustrated by the lack of jobs and stop looking for work doesn’t align with my understanding of the survival instinct. Are these professors and commentators suggesting that all these people just lay down to die? Decide to walk the earth like Caine on Kung Fu? That somehow frustration trumps the need for food and shelter?

Certainly it’s possible that some people may have the option to work only when the labor market is strong enough to provide copious, high-paying jobs. And certainly there are some people that would work some jobs, but when they aren’t available pursue other means of survival such as disability insurance. And some people probably walk the earth.

But in general, people need to eat and don’t want to sleep on the street, and working a job is their only option.

The second thing that gets me is that there’s an obvious problem in the calculation of the workforce participation rate: it counts all people ages 16 and older as possible workers. Workforce participation generally declines rapidly once people get to retirement age, because people that age want to retire and they have social security and/or retirement benefits to rely on for food and shelter.

So, if there was an unusually large generation say, and they all got older and started to retire, then one might reasonably expect the workforce participation rate to decline overall. It so happens that we are at precisely one of those times, as a very large generation born around 1950 started to turn 60 years old around 2010.

The first graph below shows that from 2000 to 2015 the number Americans ages 15 to 59 increased by 9 million (5%), while the number of Americans 60 years old and over increased by 29 million (49%).

The second graph show what the workforce participation rate looks like if you calculate it using the 15 to 59 population rather than the current 16+ population.* The former shows a much more realistic picture of the workforce, where about 90% of people in the age group we normally associate with work are either working or looking for work. We can also note other interesting things, like a slight dip after the economic crash in 2008, but an overall trend that is increasing.

 

*There are a few issues this comparison. First, there are certainly plenty of people that work after age 60, which would make the top line a little overstated. Second, while BLS uses 16+ for their participation rate calculation, the only data they had that was easily accessible to me (i.e. I got in less than an hour) was broken into 5-year blocks, so I had to include age 15 as well. This would make the top line a little understated. The point here is not to be as precise as possible though, it is to show large trends that illustrate the problem with the current method of measurement.

Yes it irritates me when the assorted punditry uses bad statistics to further their agendas. But perhaps even more irritating is when individuals and organizations that are generally neutral and dedicated to things like good governance use bad statistics for seemingly no reason.

Statistics are supposed to describe reality in a way that helps us understand things. Which of those two lines seems more like reality to you? Do you feel like just about everyone you know of working age is either working or looking for work? Do you feel like we have an aging population that we need to seriously consider for both the labor market and things like health care?

Or do you feel like only 6 in 10 working age people you know are working or looking for work, and that the rest are just sitting around, so frustrated they’ve decided to stop eating?

Beginning the Case for a More Rational Minimum Wage

My purpose here is not to argue that the minimum wage should be higher (because it’s the right thing to do, or because expanding the purchasing power of the working poor will stimulate the economy) or that the minimum wage should be abolished or reduced (because it will decrease overall employment and represents a further incursion of the government into free enterprise). My purpose is to argue, or rather to start the argument, that we make the minimum wage more rational so that we can all go about our days. 

The core issue is that the word “minimum” doesn’t mean anything. Clearly, the absolute minimum wage is $0 per hour, but we’ve already abolished slavery. So then we must ask: the minimum wage for what? Is it the minimum wage needed to survive? No, there are plenty of people that demonstrate that you can literally sustain your life on less than our current minimum wage, so it’s not that. Is it the minimum wage needed to eat three decent meals a day? The number of people with minimum wage jobs that currently receive supplemental nutrition assistance indicates that it’s not that either. To pay rent? To pay for college? To have health insurance?

The point is that there are an infinite number of things that could be used as the standard for a “minimum” wage. So how do we as a nation choose what to use as our standard? The question actually isn’t that hard to answer when we remember that the standard is one that is set by the federal government, which already subsidizes tens of millions of people a year with low incomes. The federal government already has standards in place to determine who is eligible for government assistance, which gives us the answer. The minimum wage should be the wage at which, if employed full-time, the government does not have to assist you in acquiring your basic needs (food, housing, health care, etc). 

Making this change has several benefits. First, it ends the minimum wage debate forever. The government already updates its various standards for eligibility for food stamps, rental assistance, Medicaid etc every year, so there’s no need to debate whether the minimum wage should be increased from time to time. The minimum wage will move with the other standards. It will always be the minimum amount needed to not qualify for government assistance. Second, it will force the government to examine its standards more closely, something that has been needed for a long time. Our measure of poverty, for example, is antiquated and has needed to be revised for decades. With the minimum wage as a unifying factor, we can streamline some of the other standards, reducing bureaucracy etc. 

Third, and perhaps most satisfying, is that it moves the economic arguments for and against raising the minimum wage into the background, and focuses the issue on making government assistance more understandable and transparent. If you are a fully employed adult, does it make sense that the federal government, your tax paying fellow citizens, would cover part of your rent or food? Not especially. Is a business that can’t survive while paying its employees enough so that they don’t have to be subsidized by everyone else really a viable business? Not really. And if raising the minimum wage does lead to decreased employment, then the government can definitely be there to support those people who do not have a job, or lose hours. 

Government assistance then becomes a very clear bridge for people that are unemployed or underemployed and not a subsidy for companies that want to underpay their full-time workers.

Everybody's Got the Right to Love

You should probably listen to this while you read.

I’ve been out in the open with my support of the Supreme Court for a long time, even when this hasn’t been a very popular opinion with my peers. But yesterday’s oral arguments about Proposition 8 (and states’ ability to ban same-sex marriage more generally) made me understand why some of my friends might feel kind of “icky” when they think about a bunch of old people in robes deciding things.

I’ve always liked the Supremes because the idea of our laws having some fundamental principles behind them is appealing.  Granted we totally blew it for the first many many decades. But I think it’s fair to say that the Court has been out in front of most social issues because of its adherence to the constitution, rather than opinion. Waiting for public opinion to get to 51% has historically been a longer process than getting 9 educated people to say “this discrimination doesn’t look so great, constitutionally speaking.”

So I was disappointed yesterday when so much of the discussion (full audio here) focused on whether the Court (of the constitution) should weigh in on an issue that is still being debated in the court of public opinion. That’s exactly what the Supremes are supposed to do, and really the only thing that makes them cool.

You had Scalia talking about how same-sex marriage is newer than cell phones and the internet (it isn’t), as if a state could pass a law banning women from tweeting and the Court would sit back and say “hey, it’s so new, our hands are tied.” And Kennedy wussing out about how maybe the democratic process should be allowed to play out, because that worked so well with racial segregation.  

Fundamentally this is a much simpler case than that. Not easier to decide, just simpler.

Same-sex couples have been getting married for a long time. In open-minded churches and private ceremonies, same-sex couples have been taking vows in front of witnesses, and then living together and having families, for a lot longer than people have had cell-phones (I believe my Mom’s first was in 1985). What they haven’t gotten is legal protections and benefits for those marriages. This is seemingly unequal protection under the law, which is constitutionally guaranteed (as amended).  

However, sometimes we say that it’s fine for people to have different benefits under the law.  Look at any state’s tax code for one billion examples of how some groups are treated differently with respect to legal benefits.  For cases where tech companies get a tax break and cobblers don’t, all a state has to show is that there is a “rational basis” for why the benefits should be distributed unequally, because no one is particularly worried about discrimination against cobblers anymore.

The problem is when laws distribute benefits in a way that seems discriminatory. In these cases there are what are called “protected classes,”* and it’s basically not ok to distribute benefits differently based on these distinctions without some serious legal acrobatics.

*Currently, protected classes include Race, Color, Religion, National origin, Age (40 and over), Sex, Familial status, Disability status, Veteran status, and Genetic information.

All this case is about at its core is whether being gay, lesbian, bi, or trans is something that it’s ok for laws to discriminate based on. Is it something where the state just has to have some kind or rationale (gay parents might have children with lower test scores would probably suffice for the marriage issue, really), or is the GLBT community more of a protected class.  

The answer to that seems obvious to me, but I would allow for debate on the issue. It would certainly make the anti side put their cards on the table (as demonstrated in this excellent exchange with Justice Sotomayor). What doesn’t need to be debated in the Supreme Court is the total smokescreen of whether the democratic process has played out yet. The constitution protects minorities from the will of the majority, and we need the Supremes to remember their role in that.   

Whose Property? Their Property.

Scene 1: Oakland, CA, January 2012.

Occupy Oakland protesters gather with the stated intent to commandeer an abandoned building, so that the building could be used as a meeting space. En route, protesters clash with police, who fire on unarmed citizens.

Eventually, police dedicate a truly impressive amount of time and energy to arresting 400 people outside of the Oakland YMCA, while violent crimes and emergency calls go unattended.

In the aftermath, City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente states that it’s “terrible” that protesters are consuming police resources, but “when you have hundreds if not thousands of people, and you never know if they are going to break windows or vandalize businesses, you have to respond.”

Scene 2: Truckee, CA, also all across the country, 2010.

Bank of America wrongfully forecloses on the house of one woman, disposing of her belongings without alerting her. She tells the NYT “This is in essence a burglary, but when a burglar goes in, they don’t take your photos and your husband’s ashes.” Yes, dead husband’s ashes.

Today, the federal government reached a settlement with 5 of the largest banks over the offenses related to “robosigning” foreclosures, the practice of rapidly processing millions of foreclosures without proper documentation, which resulted in scenes like the woman in Truckee’s all over the country. The settlement means that the number of people arrested for these crimes will remain at 0.

Says Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, one of the best out there, “Robosigning is not a small offense. It's not a "clerical" issue. It's a mass-perjury issue, a tax evasion issue, a contractual fraud issue, and it's a criminal conspiracy issue (the banks' highest executives were engaged in planning it) and it resulted in millions of errors that resulted in untold numbers of premature foreclosures.”

-----

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that a city leader would state that the possibility of windows being broken totally forces the hand of an entire police force. It’s a fucking window my man, and last I checked we’d figured out how to replace windows. To me, property crime should always take a back seat to people crime, especially violent-emergency-type people crime. Isn’t it just absurd to think of dozens of police in armor guarding an abandoned building while 911 rings off the hook?

But it’s not just that they have a dumbass policy of protecting things before people, because when it’s people’s things that need protecting from businesses, rather than the other way around, no one goes to jail. The banks are allowed to “settle” for less money than they made doing the robosigning in the first place, and as part of it, they get immunity. Them and all the contractor thugs who actually do the burglarizing.

This is what the Occupy movement is really about. It’s about how we’re playing a rigged game, how powerful businesses get a pass on things like “laws,” while normal people who point that fact out get arrested.

I don’t want the movement to get unduly wrapped up with police confrontation; I’d rather concentrate on the real 1%. But the police ARE a symptom of the larger problem. It is impossible for me to consider the two scenes above and not conclude that, when push comes to shove, the police are equivalent to a taxpayer-funded private security force for business interests. As we push for real reforms to the system, how the police approach people’s interests and business interests has to be on the table.

Torture? That's a No Brainer!

On Monday 9/25 i wrote this quickie on that whole torture conundrum the junior Gmen on the hill were mulling over and the general crappiness of mainstream media political interviews:

Alright, so we've all heard the Response According to Hoyle from the GOP on the water-boarding issue. A great example was given by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, and you can watch it here if you'd like (http://crooksandliars.com), but it's the same thing you've heard a dozen times by now and it goes something like this:

Q: 12 human rights organizations have united to petition this government to keep practices which violate Common Article 3 of the Geneva convention, such as water-boarding, illegal. This law was in fact used to prosecute Japanese soldiers after WWII for that exact practice. Does the senate's "clarification" of the language of that law keep those practices illegal?

A: See, you have it all wrong. The whole point of this clarification is to clarify the very vague language of this law that's been agreed upon by everyone in the world for more than 50 years. If we can't clarify this law, the interrogation of Terrorist suspects, which has saved lives in America, will have to stop, and we can't allow that.

Q: But are the specific practices mentioned by the human rights groups still illegal? You should know since this law is so clear now right?

A: I can't talk about specific practices because that would be giving the terrorists a play book. They could train themselves to endure the techniques that are allowed by the very clear law and terror would ensue.

It's at this point that every single journalist I've seen engaged in this discussion, which is many, then moves on to another topic (or maybe they repeat the last question, getting the same response and then move on, but what's the difference?). This is the problem, they don't follow up with simple questions that would nail it down, leaving the issue up in the air and defined by the GOP spin doctors, which generally turns the "interview" into propaganda.
Here is an easy one for example.

Q: But if water-boarding wasn't allowed in this new rule, wouldn't it be okay for the terrorists to know, since we're never going to do it them? We haven't told them what we will be doing, so they still can't train to get around what we will be doing, so we haven't lost any future information. It almost seems like by saying that you can't tell us whether the practice is in or out, you're saying that it is going to be allowed, and wouldn't that be eroding the law as it's stood for more than 50 years? This is a practice that's been illegal and that the US has prosecuted foreign nationals for, so including it in our interrogation programs would be changing the law, not clarifying, right?

Was that so hard?

-----

thought i'd post it here with this update:

Cheney was interviewd on Tuesday on a conservative talkshow and had this to say of waterboarding (Miami Herald).

''Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?'' Hennen said.

''I do agree,'' Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday.

''Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?'' asked Hennen.

'It's a no-brainer for me," said Cheney.

So, it seems that we can talk about individual practices afterall. What a bunch of assholes.

Get to know the DLC

If you’ve followed the news in recently you’ve probably seen some pretty harsh condemnation of “bloggers” (whoever these nutcases are) for their support of Ned Lamont, Democratic candidate for senate in Connecticut. Big Media pushed hard for Joe Leiberman, the incumbent “Democrat” who’s been endorsed by such pillars of the Blue Team as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Bill Kristol, and George W Bush.

Cokie Roberts said on ABC that voting against Lieberman would be a “disaster” for democrats.

The Washington Post (1/29/06) reported that “Democrats are getting an early glimpse of an intraparty rift that could complicate efforts to win back the White House: fiery liberals raising their voices on Web sites and in interest groups vs. elected officials trying to appeal to a much broader audience.”

Then again, (6/11/06) wondered “whether the often-angry rhetoric and uncompromising positions of the bloggers will drive the party too far left and endanger its chances of winning national elections.”

The Los Angeles Times (6/11/06) shares the worries of “Democratic centrists who fear that the new activists are pressuring the party toward liberal positions that will impede its ability to build a national electoral majority.”

And the paper that the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world smear for it’s liberal bias, The New York Times (4/2/06), wrote that liberal blogs “have proved to be a complicating political influence for Democrats. They have tugged the party consistently to the left, particularly on issues like the war”

So why are Democratic voters being lambasted for voting for a real Democrat rather than a Republican in Dem’s clothing? Why are we being told that blogs and candidates that share the view of 60% of the country, Iraq war = bad, only “complicate” th ings? For the answer to these and other perplexing questions, you’ll need to become familiar with a particularly despicable group that gave you your last Democratic president: the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Remember when Paul Wellstone said he hailed from the “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?” Yeah well, these are the other guys.

It’s beyond the scope of this post to give a full rundown of DLC history, but it’s out there, “DLC” into google does the trick. What’s important to know is that they are neocons in the democratic party. Story goes, conservative democrats got together with lots of big corporations (just for support, they’re very supportive those faceless monoliths) after the 1984 presidential debacle and formed the DLC as a way of moving the party further to the right to become more electable, which is where you get all this moderation, move to the middle bullshit now. It’s where we got John Kerry.

Thing is, similar institutes that were also funded by big corporations had just moved the republicans much further to the right in the decade before. It’ was a particularly well played hand in a way. Social conservatives were easy to sway because they were pissed off at the progressives in the 60’s and 70’s who had been telling them that they were wrong and stupid for the better part of 20 years. “You’re a bigot! FREE LOVE!” didn’t play well in the heartland and what were once hotbeds of economic populism became strongholds for “family values” and soon the neocons that would exploit them.

Once that was pretty well locked in, big business played the DLC card, convincing progressives that the only way they’d get elected, so that they can get environmental protections passed donchaknow, would be to follow the lead to the economic right. Clinton supported NAFTA, rememer? Free trade runs wild and big business wins thanks to the DLC and the neocon engineers.

Sure I like the environment and education better than bans on gay marriage and prayer in schools, and I guess that makes me more a democrat than a republican. But what WE, all of us, need to realize is that we’re getting played. Big business, and it’s mouthpiece Big Media (see nonsensical quotes above), don’t really give a crap about your cause. In fact, the economic system that they want to see advanced will almost inevitably kill your cause, be it cleaning up the potty mouths or cleaning up the superfund sites. The proof of that is easy enough to see now, look at abortion bans, and gay marriage bans, and all that crap. Hasn’t happened even though that’s what Bush won with. The tax cuts for the wealthy and war profiteering are happening sure enough, but the social conservative stuff seems to disappear when push comes to shove.

They’re plenty ready for you to have your cause if it gets you so worked up that you’ll sell out your own best interests. And that’s what we’re all doing here, we’ve got to be able to see that. Read What’s the Matter with Kansas, conservative or liberal you’ll learn something about what those terms used to mean. Just because you want to end legal abortion doesn’t mean you’re ready to give the national treasury to the richest .001%. Ditto the save the whales crowd.

The sheep’s clothing is slipping off the wolf a little bit with this Lieberman campaign because it’s so absurd. I mean the guy said he’d ditch his party if he lost and then begged voters to be loyal to him because he’s a long time incumbent. The media lockstep for a guy like that just doesn’t add up unless there’s something else going on, and there is. He’s the DLC guy, and they have the power to put that on the airwaves.

Let's all bicker about the surface stuff later, deal? Let's vote for guys like Ned Lamont, who actually represent what most of us are thinking. Let's stop getting manipulated by the mother fuckers! We can sort all that other shit out after we have a decent economic and foreign policy.

Bush Jr., Insult Comic of Presidents

I am the product of a same-sex household, having grown up with my mother and her partner of 16 years in a warm, loving, and supportive environment. I am also a person capable of rational thought and a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ. Each of these complimentary parts of my person have been offended this week by the attempts of our nations political leaders to amend the constitution of the United States, banning same-sex marriages.

Political and religious leaders supportive of the amendment noted this week that allowing same-sex couples to marry will have disastrous affects on children, family, and society. I take exception to that, for obvious reasons. I do not consider my life a disaster, and while I welcome debate on that point from any politician who would like to make an appointment with me, I'd rather they didnt continue deriding me publicly. My family is not a disaster either; I count on them for support, we're close, and enjoy regular visits and correspondence, so that claim is a sore spot for me as well. Additionally, the work that I and my family do in the health care and education fields, and our active involvement with our church and other charitable organizations, hardly seem like a disaster for society. So that one stings a little too; it feels a little like an attack on my family. It's a personal insult to me and the hundreds of thousands of other non-disasters raised in same-sex households, and not one we should have to bear from our elected representatives.

I'm also offended as a rational person by the presented arguments for this amendment. For example, President Bush has stated that changing the definition of marriage would undermine the family structure. Putting aside the use of the pejorative undermine, this is insulting to a rational mind because it is clear that allowing same-sex couples the benefits of marriage will not change the family structure in any way. Right now, same-sex couples in every state in the union cohabitate, raise families, go on vacation, etc., and none of that will change with this amendment. My childhood is evidence of that fact as my mom and her partner are not legally married. This amendment does nothing, thankfully, to outlaw same-sex relationships, it just makes life harder for those couples by not allowing them the ability to share benefits and by defining them as second class citizens.

Neither does the amendment protect heterosexual marriages in any way, because unless some people arent being honest with their fiancés, husbands, or wives, no currently heterosexual person is going to marry someone of their own sex just because its legal. So the entire undermining the family structure argument for this amendment is illogical, because this amendment wouldn't change one thing save making nearly permanent the denial of equality to a group of American citizens. It is not the legal definitions that make a family, it is the actions of the people who come together to form it, as any rational person knows.

Finally I am offended as a follower of the teachings of Jesus Christ that this amendment has been trumpeted as if it were in some way in accord with those teachings. It is widely understood that this amendment is indented to please a particular religious orientation, but it is not in accord with Biblical wisdom like:

In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you,

And,

Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

Clearly this amendment seeks to permanently restricts freedoms and protections, a fate none of its supporters would chose for themselves, and judges those in the GLBT community as second class. Additionally I am reminded of the famous story of Jesus and a woman accused of adultery, a marital sin. While I do not believe homosexuality is a sin, there are those that do, and for them the parallels of this lesson cannot be ignored. To those who would have condemned the woman, Jesus said:

He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.