Harvard and Princeton: 94% Of All New Jobs During Obama Era Were Part-Time Or Contract

a reply to: infolurker

The reality is, we have to work less. Automation, cheap goods, lowered trade barriers, immigration (and/or off-the-books underpaid labor of any kind), etc. -- all these point (and automation especially) to a world where we have less and less paid work to do, and more free time (even if it means being poor and transient, as I am). The upside is, if you can live sane without working, there are lots of great ways to spend one's time positively. Living like a monk, hermit and vagabond suits me fine -- we are necessary in every society. Bums -- at least us sober ones -- have a reasonably helpful job to do, which is observe other people and be overlooked and ignored and (sometimes) beaten up or pissed on ourselves. Our job is to spy on people who take their lives, and their good luck, for granted. It's amazing what you can learn doing that, then feed it back into the world, by commenting on human behaviors to other humans.

a reply to: Syphon

Employment is the lowest it's been in my entire life though. So we have 15 million part time jobs .. and STILL the lowest level f employment in my life. Under 60% iirc, 40%+ of working age Americans are not employed.

originally posted by: infolurker

*snip*

Under Obama, 1 million fewer workers, overall, are working than before the beginning of the Great Recession.

How can that be? 1 million fewer workers? If 1.2 million people enter the labor pool each year and tha'ts 9.6 million additional people in the labor pool over 8 years, doesn't this mean unemployment is higher, since a smaller number of the total in the labor pool are working?

Before Great Recession: X population are working of Z total population in the labor pool
Currently: (X - 1 million) population are working of (Z + 9.6 million) total population in the labor pool

That can't be right. 10.6 million more people aren't working.