Nicholas Eberstadt is an economist for the
American Enterprise Institute. He has written for
RealClearMarkets a quite good
description of our actual unemployment problem, a problem which is much greater than the 7.6% figure now quoted. He finds
Over 11 out of every 100 men of prime working age are completely out of the labor force today-one in nine, fully four times the fraction back in the early postwar era.
Eberstadt's conclusion is sobering:
There has been a major behavioral change in America, wherein a growing proportion of working-age Americans are checking out of paid labor altogether. Suffice it to say that not working at all is neither unthinkable nor unaffordable these days, even for adults in the prime of life.
I wonder how many of those not working are in prison? A contributor to the increase is the three strikes rule - imprisoning for life repeat offenders. Another factor is the great increase in Social Security disability recipients.
