I think the point here is that some unemployed choose to go out and find their own jobs, even if the Bureau of Labor insists that they don't exist. Others wait for their calls to be returned, and a few go home (or go occupy somewhere else). Some job seekers thrive on adversity, others quit at the first sign of it. Which would you hire?
This is an oversimplification. I acknowledge your point and that made by others. People looking for employment or job improvement need to work hard just to do that, and when they can’t find what they want, they need to work harder. I do take issue with calling unemployed people whiners and blaming them for being unemployed. All this does is allow people to blame the victim and then turn away without regard or remedy. There are 15 million under/unemployed and 3 million jobs open. This is a crisis, not an opportunity to criticize the unemployed. Are there unemployed whiners? Yes. But there are many more that are doing the right things, not getting results and frightened that the outcome may be permanently bad.
Any suggestions on how to help the last two groups? It doesn't seem to be very effective to hunt them down and stuff a roll of taxpayer cash in their faces.
Endless transfers to unemployed people limit suffering but don’t solve problems. The same holds true for deficit spending.
As for suggestions, this problem has been building for decades and will be quite difficult to fix. Aggregate demand in the US is inadequate so substantially higher levels of employment mean either producing for export or greater fiscal spending. Certainly there is an absolute absence of any kind of intelligent federal policy on this. In the spirit of non-partisanship, the absence of policy has characterized our gov’t for decades. I think we desperately need an industrial policy to focus on sustainable job creation that pay living wages, an energy policy that brings to 0 our net energy trade balance, and an effective and realistic immigration policy.
Colleges and Universities must get more involved - they have no skin in this game. Require them to hold half the total debt any student incurs and make that debt eligible for bankruptcy. Also make them liable for half of gov’t aid if their graduates fall into financial trouble. That will get them to sit up and take notice.
Set up a two track high secondary school system. One for college bound students and the other for direct to work or technical school students.
New housing construction is a critical component of employment and economic growth. To stabilize it and allow it grow at a more naturally sustainable level it needs to be freed of stimulus and gov’t incentive. The busts are so harsh because the boom was overstimulated.
For more immediate impact, we absolutely need a more aggressive approach dealing with employers who violate labor laws. The punishment has to be more effective in discouraging this behavior. Finally, an infrastructure bank with $500B initial funding would serve two purposes – generate between 2-3M jobs directly and another half more indirect jobs, and improve our physical infrastructure, which has been and will continue to be key to our global competitiveness.
Just some random thoughts as I recover from food hangover.
