Posted by Sherman in Idaho [108.162.246.17] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 21:06:44 :
In Reply to: Re: Hard times in the mining camp (OT) Seattle posted by Robert [199.27.133.28] on Saturday, September 17, 2016 at 18:23:59 :
If they measured unemployment today the same way they did during the Depression we'd be at 25% -- same as the hardest years back then. But they play games with the numbers and don't count all the people who have given up looking for work. It's so easy to get on disability these days that I have a hunch the feds are using it as a general-purpose dole or permanent "unemployment" check because otherwise they'd have riots on their hands. If you have a country where 25% of working-age men (not to be sexist, but it's especially young men) have no job, no income, and nothing to do, you have riots and revolutions. Most are happy to take the dole, though, and sit around peaceably. Only a few are still too proud for that, and even today there's always a job -- maybe not an easy job or a fun job, but a job -- for a man willing to work hard, either on his own or for someone else. Around here, maybe that means cutting firewood, for those who have a truck and a saw.