Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Where did you get this, Wikipedia? I've worked 2 jobs for 30 years, most teachers I know work 2 jobs, thus math is wrong or I'm getting ill compensated for being your child's babysitter.
But isn't it true that teachers work the second job only at times when they are not required to work their first? If I am a teacher for 10 months and deliver pizzas for 2 months, do I really have 2 jobs?
But isn't it true that teachers work the second job only at times when they are not required to work their first? If I am a teacher for 10 months and deliver pizzas for 2 months, do I really have 2 jobs?
It varies, but teachers often have the choice of being paid 9 or 10 months or all 12. May take the "school months only" option for the higher paycheck, but then have no income for 2-3 months. Unless there's spousal income, most have to take a job during that time (not infrequently, teaching summer school for about half pay).
But it's questions like yours that throw a harsh light on employment stats. They are geared to a simplistic model of one person, one job, on a more or less continuous basis. Working? That's one category. Out of work and looking and collecting unemployment? That's another category. There is a little accounting for people who are out of work past unemployment benefits and "still looking," but pretty much anyone who falls outside this black and white dichotomy is ignored or marginalized.
So the person working two jobs at the same time is not noted as "overemployed." The person working a scanty part-time job is probably not noted as "underemployed." The person who works two alternating jobs, as in your scenario above, is not noted as any special case. The person who has been unemployed so long they've exhausted benefits and are no longer registered with anyone vanishes. Cases like a self-employed person whose business is failing/nonsupporting is not counted as a job seeker, nor is someone who pulled out of the labor pool for health or injury or family reasons and is now trying to reenter it.
So all the numbers about employment and jobs and so forth are very precise... they are just so highly selective and mired in an outdated model of employment that they're increasingly meaningless. (And often manipulated on top of that; "150,000 new jobs" may or may not be net after 75,000 layoffs. And so forth.)
I've been through 17% unemployment and 2% unemployment. The present era, all boom-boom, jobs-for-all headlines aside, feels a lot more to me like a double-digit era than a minimal one.
She's a liar and just another Liberal not in touch with Reality.
Only 8,030,000 Americans hold multiple jobs. By comparison, there were 7,791,000 Americans holding multiple jobs in year 2000.
While it might appear that the more Americans are holding multiple jobs, that is in fact false.
There were 213,736,000 working-age Americans in year 2000, or 3.6% had multiple jobs, while today only 3.1% hold multiple jobs.
If you examine the data going back to 1994, what you can conclude is that roughly 3.2% of Americans have always had multiple jobs and that figure is largely unchanged over time. That is quite often by choice, and not by necessity.
Men work an average of 40.8 hours per week, while women average 36.2 hours per week.
It always cracks me up with the martyrs tell their tales of working 70 to 80 hours all the time.
I usually work 50 to 55. Under extreme deadline pressure when I’ve worked 80 hours, it’s literally working 12 hours a day during the week and Saturday and Sunday. It’s terrible quality of life and not sustainable. I absolute loath it. And it makes the weeks blend together. Mistakes are easy to make and the efficiency goes down so much.
When ever I hear someone talking about how they work 80 hour weeks as if that’s normal, I immediately think they’re full of ****.
Someone who works that much is probably in the top 1 percentile or higher of actual hours worked. There’s no way people work that as frequently as it’s claimed unless they’re for some reason counting their commute or like their time getting ready for work. 80 hours is ALOT.
VeryBadGnome, I've often heard that average or median working hours per week, per employee are less for almost all industrial nations, in comparison to the United States.
I'm also aware that unemployment rates do not factor in the segment of our population that gave up their futile search for employment.
Jobs are less meaningful if they do not provide with sufficient purchasing power. Jobs are less attainable for the segment of our population that have not benefited from training, educational and other experiences to do the work, or if they lack the documentation or the appearances that are required of prospective employees.
Regarding jobs' purchasing powers:
Yes, I am aware that the legal work week in the US is longer than France for example, but at the same time I don't think the standard 40 is too onerous (that's what I've always worked). Yes, there is a point where those job seekers are no longer counted but as far as I'm aware that is always the way this was tabulated, yet our unemployment rate is near an historic low. Another factor related to that is the workforce participation rate which peaked at 67% is now at 64%. This leads me to believe that a segment of our population - minus the statistically small unemployed homeless population - has found a way to get by without having a job. My old neighbor does not want to clean homes any more but found a way to stretch her disability check, while my cousin still lives at home at age 35. Or my ex-friend with a biology degree who lives at home; never tries to better his situation; and works PT time at his family's Chinese restaurant. Could there be a generational aspect to this? Could it be globalization, marijuana use, social media, land use policies is fast growing cities or a combination of these and a dozen other factors? Maybe, but a trend without known causes is still a trend.
Jobs acquire meaning when they better your life which is how the system should work. The Central American immigrant with a 5th grade education, little English proficiency, and few job skills will most likely find a wage commensurate with what they bring to the table. My Russian great-grandparents who immigrated to the U.S at the beginning of the last century (with documentation I might add) did not find it easy either, but such a situation can at least provide motivation for the next generation (to which my grandfather started a clothing store). Don't know about your neck of the woods but community college is dirt cheap around here and there are opportunities to those who would pursue them and take a small amount of risk. I was talking to my electrician last month and he said a minimal amount of training would get you hired as an apprentice with the salary equivalent of what I had graduating with a four year degree, minus the huge student loans.
Just one question: what are "the appearances"?
Back to AOC.....She made the mistake of taking anecdotal information from friends and family and conflating that to the overall economic picture in the U.S. I would accept this from a college freshman, but she is not that..........
The OP's contention may be wrong, but there is clearly something wrong with employment in this country, despite the glowing number-of-jobs and unemployment rates. There has been no corresponding increase in family income or financial well-being, no reductions in various forms of financial aid, and while it's anecdotal, there sure seem to be a hell of a lot of people who can't get a job - even an inadequate one - in this 'scraping the barrel' market.
This seems like a contradiction! How can we have more jobs and less unemployment, without increasing family income and financial well being ... and reducing the number of people who can't get a job??
The last time I remember 2% unemployment, fast food restaurants etc. were propping up zombies at counters and so forth. I have not noticed any particular syndrome of substandard, fill-in workers this time around.
They also weren't paying a (relative or actual) minimum wage of $11-$15!
I think the numbers are "honest" as far as they go - but for various reasons, no longer measure anything of particular value. Yes, there are X number of jobs and in theory only X number of unsuccessful job-seekers... but that completely ignores pay levels, job quality, net income etc. - and multiple jobs.
This seems like a different discussion than the thread.
The OP's contention may be wrong, but there is clearly something wrong with employment in this country, despite the glowing number-of-jobs and unemployment rates. There has been no corresponding increase in family income or financial well-being, no reductions in various forms of financial aid, and while it's anecdotal, there sure seem to be a hell of a lot of people who can't get a job - even an inadequate one - in this 'scraping the barrel' market.
The last time I remember 2% unemployment, fast food restaurants etc. were propping up zombies at counters and so forth. I have not noticed any particular syndrome of substandard, fill-in workers this time around.
I think the numbers are "honest" as far as they go - but for various reasons, no longer measure anything of particular value. Yes, there are X number of jobs and in theory only X number of unsuccessful job-seekers... but that completely ignores pay levels, job quality, net income etc. - and multiple jobs.
I agree with much of what you say here. I think the core issue is the labor force participation rate is low. It's bumped up from the bottom the last few months, but still quite low compared to say, 1999 or 2000. Even with the low participation rate, I don't feel like we're in what was more typical of a "double digit" unemployment rate in earlier times. I think we're doing better than that. But I do agree record low unemployment doesn't mean as much as it used to when your labor force participation rate is near record lows. Sure, some of that is because of the retiring Baby Boomers, but we still have a pretty low labor force participation rate for those age 25-54.
The only people I know of that regularly work in excess of 70 hours per week are illegal immigrants. They don't do it because they love to work. They do it because they come in and undercut legal workers prices and pay and then work a lot of hours to compensate for the low pricing/low pay.
I work a lot of hours regularly. Typically in the 60 hours per week range but I own my own businesses and I for whatever reason like to work and always have. People have hobbies like fishing, arts and crafts, hunting, hiking, bike riding and other such things but my hobby is working. I just do different work at different times.
There are other people like me that just enjoy working and making money. Those are a portion of the people that regularly hold more than one job. Of course there are also those that do it out of necessity.
As for the current unemployment rate and people that are able to work but aren't being counted because they aren't seeking work, the obviously are not that interested in having a job. If you want a job right now, you can easily find one. There are plenty of jobs available and only the ones that either don't really want one or are trying to be picky about what job they will take and pass over good jobs are the ones not working right now.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
