Honestly this is basically like leaving free money on the table. I don't think candidates realize how easy it would be to get voters if they just ran on making it more reasonable and less stressful to get a job.
I know even if a politician "promises" to do something it won't be immediate and it might not happen because of other parts of the government or them simply changing their mind or lying about it. But still promising to fix this would make voters way more likely to vote for them.
I'm not talking about raising the minimum wage to $25-$50. That's just low hanging fruit for ignorant people who don't realize how the economy actually works.
I'm talking about addressing job obtainment/security. A common complaint is how annoying it is to get a job in the first place. Even if you have the qualifications and try to put out a good resume you can still end up getting no updates on your application or denied without good reason. Not to mention the ghost job debacle or people just being too damn lazy to take down positions that have already been filled. People shouldn't be applying to hundreds of jobs just to get one.
How are people going to provide for themselves and their family if they can't even get their foot in the door because of bullshit that's mostly out of their control? This is why saying "just get a job" over the SNAP benefits situation was an ignorant thing to say that rightfully pissed people off.
Also how long have we been hearing about college students not being able to find jobs soon after graduating or ending up with jobs they didn't even go to college for just to have some form of income? Too damn long. You guarantee college graduates can find a job in a reasonable amount of time, you'll see less outcry over repaying student debt.
I’m convinced the economy is in far worse shape than anyone who understands its machinations is letting on.
Both people under 30 and people over 50 are finding it incredibly hard to find decent jobs. I’m finding a ton a people suffering from severe underemployment. A lot of men over 50 have been booted from their career track and cannot get back on, finding themselves having to downsize at a time when they should be in their peak earning years. Meanwhile, a lot of young men simply can’t get that career started at all.
None of this is “normal” and no one seems to be doing anything to juice the economy or provide some answer to this.
We are deep trouble.
Yeah. What's needed is a systemic change. Capitalism is showing its issues and contradictions all over the world.
Capitalism is the only system that will work. The problem is the people in charge. They are bankrupt on the inside.
Capitalism is a terrible system when the people in it have no morality beyond serving themselves at the expense of others. The problem is that all the other systems are even worse than capitalism in this regard.
So, the problem is not capitalism. The problem is human self-centeredness. Amoral and immoral people at the heart of any economic system will harm it. That’s what needs to be fixed, not capitalism itself.
Why?
What does this even mean? I argue that material conditions move us.
It has nothing to do with morality, it's just how the system works. A thought experiment: In a hypothetical situation where half of the businesses pay as little wage as possible, thus the capitalists take as much profits as possible and they can reinvest this capital. The other half of the businesses pay as much wage as possible, leaving no profits for the capitalists to reinvest. This ends in the way that the capitalists who can reinvest, they will eventually out-compete the capitalists who can't reinvest. This is a part of how capitalism and markets work.
Could you explain?
Let me guess, it's human nature and we can't change humans therefore we're doomed? Or, humans are malleable and having a system which rewards greediness is one of the issues.
What exact legislation are you proposing or want a candidate to endorse to make it easier for people to get jobs?
The opposite of DOGE. Even if the cuts make sense, it add more layoff fear and dumps more white collar workers out into the unemployment pool. Adding government stimulus infrastructure projects would be a good start.
The oligarchs really don't need us anymore the way they used to.
I 100% agree that this is a much more important issue than people realize. I don't know what should be done about it and unfortunately this particular issue makes me so $#@%ing mad it's hard to even comment intelligibly on the topic since all I have are personal anecdotes and vignettes that could maybe hopefully point in a direction which could be summed up as "make hiring sane again" or "yarrr just put things back the way they were when things were sort-of working!"
Policy with no empirical follow-up is a problem to this, though.
Does cutting taxes and providing incentives to businesses for 3 years to increase their capital expenditures (TCJA) result in more jobs? For how long? Where does the money end up over time? What are the short- and long-term effects on the job market?
Do increased regulations reduce jobs? How much more/less stable is the job market when there are increased regulations? Regulated how and by how much?
Once you get into the details, discrepancies in analysis and conclusions follow. How often do you or the people you know vote or make decisions based on consensus economic analysis? How would you know it was consensus analysis versus cherry-picked, biased analysis?
Are you or people you know voting more based on guns, gays, and genitals than economics?
These questions, I think, show the difficulty with what you're assuming in your post is political easy-pickings.
Bro, in 2 election cycles, there will be no more market for human labor.
The problem with opinions like this, is that the same level of hysteria required to accept them, also prevents acceptance of counter-arguments.
That's quite a presumption...
Do you also think climate change is not real and vaccines are deep conspiracies, or do you believe numbers and facts?
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Hmm, Is this just your long, virtual signaling way of saying no?
Or is this just your own anchoring and confirmation bias at play?
Hard to tell.
The easier you make it to apply the more people will apply.
It won't, it's too favourable to democrats. Historically democrats have always "created" more jobs than republicans
IMO, tightening up our nation’s bankruptcy laws is the key.
Someone who is an actual bankruptcy law historian, attorney, or economist could probably do a better job of articulating what I’m trying to say.
But, with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s understand what bankruptcy is.
When a bank (or some other entity) lends money, that entity expects that money to be paid back. If some MBA dude bro wastes that money, he can tell the government that “I can’t pay back my debts! Protect me from the bank who wants its money back!”.
If the MBA dude bro receives bankruptcy protection, the government can force the bank to accept a fraction of the money it is owed.
Bankruptcy is essentially legalized theft, stealing the right of a creditor to be repaid.
Well, in a country where B1G_Fan was king, I would say to the MBA dude bro (let’s call him Ronald Frump for the sake of argument)
“No, Mr. Frump, you’re going to pay back every dollar that you owe. You’re going to sell everything you own to pay down your debts. And if you don’t have the enough stuff to pay down your debts, we have a very nice labor camp in which you can work off your debts. And if you don’t have the life expectancy to pay back your debts, then I guess we’ll have to curve out an exemption in the 8th Amendment to allow you to be publicly executed via that scene in Law Abiding Citizen so that every business and executive knows that the penalty for potentially flushing someone’s retirement down the toilet is severe.”
I know what you’re thinking:
“Gosh, Mr. B1G_Fan, that last bit sounds harsh.”
Well, people aren’t going to put forth the effort to save for retirement if they can’t trust a bank or a corporation to help them do so. Remember: 40% of stocks are owned by retirement funds, pension funds, and mutual funds. And when people don’t have faith in the private sector, they will vote to increase the size of government with all of its vulnerability to corruption.
In any case, think back to Lehmann Brothers’ bankruptcy in 2008. Somehow, the CEO of Lehmann Brothers Dick Fuld and his wife got to keep his million dollar paintings, his $14 million dollar oceanfront home in Florida, his summer vacation home in Idaho, and imagine other stuff.
Nope, that’s not capitalism where the government protects irresponsible private sector actors from their mistakes. Mr. Fuld and the rest of the “leadership” at Lehmann Brothers should pay back every dime that they owe.
So, what does all of this have to do with incentivizing employers to fix their hiring and training processes?
Well, if private sector entity is actually on the hook for paying back their debt, no matter how painful the process might be…
It should, theoretically, it should make a business owner think twice about hiring their incompetent son (Ronald Jr.) instead of the black/hispanic/asian dude/dudette who was perfectly qualified for the job. Therefore, there would be no need for some incompetent HR office to vet the job applicant.
Also, a bank that has to be more careful where it lends money to would also theoretically have an incentive to keep employee retention rates high.
Theoretically, of course.
TLDR: Tightened up bankruptcy laws are a better way to reward companies who hire the best people for the job and punish companies who hire based on bigotry or nepotism, thereby allowing for an HR shenanigans free hiring process.
In my humble opinion, of course.
The only reason why you can condone this, is because you assume that it will never happen to you.
That’s potentially fair.
Theoretically, I’d argue that forcing people to work off the debts they occur probably hurts those on the higher end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
In 2024, it looks like the average bankruptcy liability is somewhere around $169K. It’s not impossible to work off that debt. Whereas a millionaire or billionaire who owes more than they can afford to pay is likely going to have to spend the rest of their life paying off that debt.
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"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007
I think you need to do some reading on debtors' prisons and how they have been used in the past to essentially create slaves.
Play this out to its conclusion - you child gets cancer, you can't afford the medical bills, you take out a loan to save your kids life, you can't pay it back and you spend the next 20 years in a forced labour camp.
Or
You grow up in a poor society and are not taught how to handle money. You take out a predatory pay day loan with a 50% interest rate to pay for groceries. You miss a payment and hidden fees kick in. You default. Forced labour camp.
This is just slavery with extra steps.
The job market is distorted by internet job sites in the same way that dating is distorted by dating apps. Too many people are competing for the same elite jobs. Meanwhile, many jobs go unfilled because they are less appealing. Solve that.
Most of the jobs going unfulfilled literally can't support a single person, much less a family. People are choosing to sit out instead of signing up for $35k a year.
People are competing for certain jobs for a reason. It's not because they are "cool."
The median salary for an electrician is $62K, and there are currently thousands of job openings.
Median salary for a refinery operator is $79K.
Those were just the first two I checked.
It takes 4 years of training to become an electrician. (I imagine you are paid somewhat during those apprenticeships, but who knows how much.) So, while people who have that time to train should consider doing it, it isn't a job you can just go out and get haha. And we don't want people just becoming electricians in 3 months.
"I'm here to sign up for the electrician job please!"
I won't even bother looking up training for "refinery operator."
We live in a different time now.
Short term thinking is another part of the problem. Another part of it is horrible career guidance by our public schools.
Yes, your remedies don't solve the short-term problem of no job options.
We can get thousands of people enrolled in electrician apprenticeships now. Who knows what that leads to in 4 years when people are competing for those jobs.
It's very, "Everyone become a lawyer." Or, "Learn to code."
My point is you need a varied job market with people hiring. And we don't have that.
That is becoming very clear.