’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’

[TreasonousBastard]

30. The problem with going in blindly and looking up numbers without a background...

in those numbers and how they are collected is that they are misinterpreted.

Less than half the US population that is theoretically able to work is employed because of stay-at-home moms and dads, retirees, medical problems, school, prison, and other things that one might want to judge as good or bad reasons.

"Full employment" is seen by economists as the level at which everyone who wants a job has one and there are no inflationary or deflationary effects from the workforce. It is never 100% because there is always a certain amount of shuffling around and job changes and 100% would be highly inflationary.

Right now, there are huge arguments over whether the full employment rate should be around 4%, like it had been for years, or closer to 6 or 7%. Needless to say, both are far under what we have now so we are nowhere near full employment. Some economists have argued that this is as good as it's going to get so the rate should be over 10%-- they aren't very popular.

But, after all this is hashed over for the thousandth time, just how are we going to get the unemployed back to work? Massive Depression-style public works have been considered and dropped for many reasons-- not the least of which is ignorant Republican virtually religious opposition to spending any Democrat likes.

My personal take is to try to get lower spending levels to fix obvious problems-- aging infrastructure, cleaning up the waterways, basic research... Just getting back to doing the jobs we're supposed to be doing should be a pretty good kickstart.