A better way to measure unemployment-Put an ad in the paper for a $15...

[European Socialist]

an hour warehouse job needing no experience-and they are hiring 500 people. Thousands would apply. Then divide by the population of the area. This index would be a better indicator of underemployment and people who have given up looking for work.

[raccoon]

1. sounds good to me.

You'd be inundated with applications.

[Flying Dream Blues]

2. Yes, and I also want to see proof of the 207,000 new jobs.

Are they all at McDonalds/Walmart? Let's put the offshored jobs on a ledger next to the new jobs. The guy who used to make $75,000 can now make $12,000 a year at WalMart, so what's the problem?
:sarcasm:

[KG]

4. only the new jobs are mentioned, not the old lost during the same time.

[acmejack]

5. They will revise it downward.

They almost always do & make sure it is in the friday news dump. The first set of figures with these guys is usually in error in their favor when initially introduced.

[barb162]

20. Yes, their first number is always optimistic, the revisions are

in a downward direction and you never hear them unless you really search. You'd think there was a great labor market

[dweller]

3. expect a riot though

when the applicants realize the ruse.

dp

[European Socialist]

6. They would call a 800 number first-and be told the truth.

[dweller]

8. that's smart.

but you might also consider local phone numbers. 800 numbers may not garnish interest in some parties.

but calling to get the info is a good idea.
dp

[zbdent]

7. Hmm, sounds like a good idea for

a prank on a red business . . .

[lunchtime]

9. Wouldn't people with jobs also apply?

Someone making $11 an hour elsewhere might apply for your job, but he's still employed.

[newyawker99]

10. Hi lunchtime!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[lunchtime]

11. Hello, Newyawker!

Thanks for the welcome. :)

[JanMichael]

14. Of course they would because $11/hr is a low paying job.

Ie. Underemployed.

Or underpaid. Let's see I believe Costco pays and average of around $15/hour (everyone startsat $10/hr with a three year employee taking home $42,000/year) while walmart pays just under $10/hr (Median $8.50/hr) and Sam's Club pays around $11-12/hr. I'd run screaming for the $15/hr ad myself if I made 10/hr. That's a significant difference in take home pay. Also with the benefits a good employer offers over the lousy ones it's very substantial.

Welcome to DU!

[jmowreader]

18. Whether it is depends on where you are

My wife comes from an area where $9/hour is a damn good job.

In New York City, $11/hr is what you make standing on a street corner with a bottle of Windex.

[JanMichael]

19. I adressed that in post #18.

:-)

[TahitiNut]

12. A picture is worth a thousand words.

[Nikia]

13. Last year, our company had over 250 applicants

Based on two job postings with the state job service. These jobs require no experience and pay $9-$11/hour. Our HR person told us that when we were asking for additional benefits like payed sick days. She seemed to be saying "If you don't like it, you can quit because we could replace everyone here." Also, we always have temps ready to come in on short notice which get payed even less than the hired people.
In your scenario, many of the people working at my plant would apply, of course.

[dcfirefighter]

15. $11 isn't underpaid

for someone short on skills, work history, or education.

You can not buck the system as it is. There's no magic wand to wave and say "ALL JOBS SHALL PAY $15/H OR BETTER".

You have to increase the DEMAND for labor. I suggest by:
1) Decreasing income taxes on the bottom 75% of earners, putting more money in their pockets to be spent. Even better, eliminate the payroll tax for the same effect. The SS raiders have already proven the taxes to be fungible.
2) Look at the factors of production: Taxing the use (and abuse) of land & natural resources means that production must bear more on labor and capital goods. More demand for labor, more demand for capital goods (which requires labor to build). Put another way - as oil gets more expensive, how many people will be employed building and installing wind, solar, and nuclear power? How many will be employed buiding and operating railroads and transit systems? How many will be employed building energy-efficient buildings and appliances? How many will work the earth on more labor-intensive organic farms?
3) Eliminating the payroll tax makes labor some 12-15.7% cheaper. Depending on the elasticity of demand for labor, this could create millions of jobs. Existing wages would have to rise to retain good employees - they'll now have other opportunities.

Attempts to restrict labor SUPPLY tend to be sexist, racist, nationalist, elitist, or otherwise nefarious. I would close our borders for security reasons alone, though.

[JanMichael]

16. You know it really depends on one's situation and location.

For instance the median wage for workers at Walmartzilla is about $8.50/hr. Plus they only have the health plan applied to about 40% of their workforce. If one is living in certain areas this may be about as good as they can get in the system we all love and cherish. So if the Housing Wage is high, as it is in many areas of america today, then a two person household is in some deep doo-doo for lack of a better term.

I understand the wish that new markets and industries will somehow alleviate that disconnect but as of now they do not.

I wish I could be a free-market utopian but I guess the statistics and reality don't let me...

[dcfirefighter]

21. No doubt much income goes to pay for real estate

Which disappears into the landlord's (or seller's) pocket. High real estate values are a product of demand and speculation. Take away the speculation, and prices become more affordable. Meet the demand by building UP rather than out (sprawl) and by using valuable infill sites. Do both by taxing land values while untaxing building values, and housing becomes more affordable, cities become more livable, and more land remains available for agriculture or wilderness.

Importantly, this plan does not involve government edict pricing (rent control or minimum wages).

And the link is provided to 'housing wage' calculates the wage ONE earner would require for a TWO bedroom apartment. Sorry, but my simpathies arent there. Most occupancies are permitted 2 occupants per bedroom + 1 more. An uncomfortable life, but the necessities are met. Likewise, they limit the rent payments to 30% of income, which is low, and does not account other affordability issues e.g. living in a city may alleviate having to own and operate a car, saving a couple hundred bucks a month.

See also this link regarding the regressive home mortgage interest deduction: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4271106

[JanMichael]

22. I guess single parents aren't good enough for the equation?

And anyway in most urban aeas two low income workers living together would still be paying out their nose on rent. Don't even factor in kids.

BTW I agree about the speculation part that you wrote.

There are some serious systemic problems going on that aren't likely to get better before they get worse.

Also the Rent Wage site is a decent site, try not to poo-poo it just to make a point:-)

[dcfirefighter]

24. I realize the single parent angle

but then you fall into the needy family category, and not necessarily the 'merely' poor. And yes, rent is expensive - (that's why I think that portion of the rent that goes to land value should be considered fair game for the tax man - at least it would provide services rather than fatten a landlord - and it wouldn't raise prices nor reduce building)

In DC, many spanish people live 3-4 to a room in neighborhoods I couldn't afford. Of course, they probably don't 'qualify' for official benefits.

I'm also kind of ticked that, in DC, there's subsidized housing (that I don't qualify for) and there's nonsubsidized housing (that I can't afford). So call me bitter, but I tend to think that sometimes relocation is the answer to expensive housing, especially if the recipient isn't working. You can notwork anywhere, and it's apparently cheaper to house you in West Virginia.

And if the NIMBY folks didn't legislate maximum housing densities, we'd have more housing units. As it is, the only time we get real dense housing is long after the market has needed it, and the area has gentrified. Take the speculation out of it, so that it's not profitable to hold a lot underbuilt, and our housing problems would go away. (and employ a bunch of folks in the construction industry)

http://www.newcolonist.com/tworate.html

Come to think of it, I'll rant for a moment: think of all the things our governments do to keep people out of work:
It taxes sales, reducing retail positions. It subsidizes roads, moving what positions there are out to the big box store in the suburbs (which employ fewer people than 'main street stores', or at least fewer paid employees: the customer does most of the warehouse and delivery work)
It taxes buildings, reducing construction positions, and reduces the availability of commercial locations at which people can work.
It taxes payrolls, increasing the cost of employing people.
It taxes incomes (<$100,000) so that people have less disposable income with which to realize demand (and drive employment through their purchases)
It subsidizes oil & coal & pollution, allowing fossil fuels to do the work of people
It favors capital to labor in the tax codes, encouraging machines to take the place of people (I'm not against progress, but I think that it should be a fair and even competition)

[jmowreader]

17. Wouldn't work. Sorry.

The VAST majority of people who applied for a $15 warehouse position would have $12-$18 jobs now. Yes, people will take pay cuts if it also means taking a stress cut.

Unemployment can't be measured. Don't fool yourself into thinking it can be.

[European Socialist]

26. you are right-but we can do much better than just counting people who...

are collecting unemployment. Maybe have several indexes.

[jmowreader]

27. Here's how you do it

Start with the census and look at movement into and out of the area to determine the local population. Now that the practice of reducing the homeless problem by giving it a bus ticket to New York City has subsided, people don't move from homelessness in city A to homelessness in city B. Looking at the number of new residential water accounts being opened in an area should tell us the population of the city within a reasonable margin of error. We need to know this because joblessness is reported as a rate, which requires knowing how many people there are in an area. A thousand people out of work is a disaster in a city of ten thousand and a drop in the bucket in a city of ten million.

(Why water accounts? Anything else would require too much filtering--did the guy who bought the house at 4404 Boones Farm Road come from another area or from across the street? Because water accounts can be moved from property to property as the accountholder moves and renters open them too, a new water account usually means a new city resident. It's easy to flag the people who moved from their parents' house: just ask any real young people if they lived in a residence that had an account with the water company before they opened this account, and drop anyone who answers affirmatively from the statistics.)

We now know how many people are in the area. Now it's time to use W-4 forms and familial data to determine how many have jobs. We will find that the following categories are applicable:

1) No one in the family has a job
2) Wife has no job because husband has good job
3) Worker has full-time job
4) Worker has part-time job
5) Worker has both kinds of job
6) Worker owns the business

I drop out the jobless-by-choice types. Dad brings in $500k per year? If mom has a job, it's there to get her out of the house and it's probably volunteer.

I also drop out the multi-job types. Consider the sad and sordid case of Josh Freese. He toils as a drummer in Los Angeles. He's been on over 100 records as a session drummer, he's in A Perfect Circle, he's in The Vandals, he was in Devo...according to the Department of Labor, he's got like nine jobs. How many does he really have? One: playing drums. According to the Department of Labor's standards, there are about nine Josh Freeses running around. Trust me on this: you do not want more than one of these running around. They're dangerous.

Once we've done this, we know how many people are working right now, and by dividing the workers by the potential workers, we know what the real unemployment rate is.

We also know that we really DON'T want to know what the real unemployment rate is.

[Incitatus]

23. unemployment

The plan also assumes that everyone who is unemployeed reads the paper your ad is placed in and is willing to work in a warehouse.

[lostnfound]

25. Ironic. We just did almost that.

$15 a hour warehouse job. Hiring 1. Experience. Got more than 100 replies in 3 days. Medium-sized town.