Our Jobs In The US Have Shrunk To 1978 levels, We Should Demand Action

With the rise of feminism we saw the labor participation rate rise from an average of around 59% in the 1940's to 1960's to a high of 67% in in the later 1990's. Now here we sit in 2013, at 62.8% which is the lowest since 1978. Some households have 2 or more jobs, while others have zero.

Obama has done this country a disservice by covering up the fact that less people are in the US labor force than 35 years ago. To heck with all his other "pressing" issues, I want him to work on OUR most pressing issue. This isn't all about him and his grandiose ideas. This is about the American citizens that he was elected to represent. So Obama, get to work and now, and without presidential decrees... Groan... I always say don't complain unless you have a solution, so to help get him started here are some of my own ideas.

Obviously we have a big problem here and we will turn blue in the face before government fixes some of the core problems. Businesses should be rewarded for not outsourcing their jobs. And businesses that outsource should be penalized with extra taxes. Also, maybe import taxes should be adjusted to create a fair market for the US. And export taxes could be lowered to stimulate purchases from inside the US. Another thing we need to do is lock our borders down immediately to preserve the jobs available to our poorest of citizens.

Now I am just throwing ideas off the top of my head. But what if households that have 2 working couples get a decent tax credit if one of them leaves the work force? This would then make jobs available to the households without any. So households would be rewarded for only having one job. Hmmm... Sounds good to me. Except I would likely be the one to keep my job since I make considerably more than my spouse. But if he drives me to work on snowy days, I won't complain.

Eventually the incomes would adjust when bosses are pressured by employees with only one income in their households. Sort of how things worked in the old days, right? Plus having less people in the work force would remove the buyers market that businesses have been enjoying lately. So this too would raise pay rates.

Now these are all just my ideas, and I would love to hear some of your own. I may even think up some more as time passes.

Link where I got my rates. Now this isn't Bush Vs. Obama since they both sux, I just got my rates from here.

Obama outpacing Bush at reducing labor participation rate

reply to post by elouina


I disagree with your other comments on minimum wage, but as far as the idea that we should get back to one worker families, keeping things made in the US, and so on, I agree with you totally.

Have you ever talked to these globalist guys though? They really want to get rid of the idea of the "nation state", like the US as being important at all, and have a world "without borders" with lots of interdependence, which they claim will prevent war and create peace. They're a really powerful force in the US, but less so in other countries, including countries we trade with, which ends up creating situations where we get the short end of the stick. We need to be at least as sane about this as our trading partners are, to prevent situations where the US spends all its money buying a round for the whole bar, only to learn that no one else at the bar is going to buy them a drink once its time for the next round. A situation where we realize "globalism" isn't quite as global as we thought.

PS. I love your ideas about single worker families including house husbands as well as house wives. I actually walked away from some good potential mates in my youth, because they made more than me (I'm male) and my stupid pride.