Greenspun sliced up the unemployment numbers and got 9.1%
Unemployment statistics were redefined starting in the early 1960s by the Kennedy Administration. First they took out the "discouraged", people who wanted a job, but had stopped looking. Under the Reagan Administration, the workforce was expanded by adding in members of the U.S. military, who were by definition "employed", thus shrinking the percentage of "unemployed". The Clinton Administration reduced the number of households sampled from 60,000 to 50,000 and "a disproportionate number of the dropped households were in the inner cities." Phillips doesn’t talk about prisoners, but we have greatly increased our prison population, most of those incarcerated are working-age men, and none are counted in the workforce. Phillips claims that "Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today’s U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 percent and 12 percent." [Poking around at http://www.bls.gov/cps/ reveals that, in 2007, 146 million of us were working, 7 million were unemployment, and 4.7 million were classified as not in the workforce but "wanted a job"; an additional 2.3 million Americans were in prison, presumably due to their energetic work habits in illegal trades. The "U-6" series, published by the BLS but almost never reported by newspapers, shows an unemployment rate right now of 9.1 percent.]
> Phillips doesn’t talk about prisoners, but we have greatly increased our prison population, most of those incarcerated are working-age men, and none are counted in the workforce.
Many prisons have inmates who work at various jobs. Should those jobs count? If not, why should we count folks in prisons?
I don't think that prisoners should be counted simply because they are incapable of finding real employment. It's despicable that the prisons only pay between a nickel and a quarter for an hour's labor. Worse yet is the private prison system that is funded by the government but can sell goods manufactured by what is, essentially, an enslaved people.
For this reason, those two million Americans cannot be considered as part of the real workforce, as their labor is essentially free.
We should count the number of prisoners as an extra hardship on our economy. There is the cost of keeping them in prison, the cost of when they get out, the cost of the children they have but are not raising.
Count yourself as one of the ones putting them in prison. For the public, it's not a hardship, but rather, an investment. Now, undoubtedly, destructive crime adversely affects the economy and community stability. Let's just hope that those in prison truly threaten enough harm to warrant the investment, or else we're wasting our money (It's always "ours" until you find yourself on the other side, right?) while severely damaging lives of others, such as the children you mentioned.
There is a more complex breakdown that what you suggest: "For the public, it's not a hardship, but rather, an investment."
For some of the prisoners, for some of the public, its an investment. For some of this same public, some of the other prisoners, it is a hardship. For some other part of the public, the breakdown is different.
The prison issue should eventually come into focus as the complex problem it is. Up to now its not talked about enough for most (including myself) to have a clear opinion.
Comments
Greenspun sliced up the unemployment numbers and got 9.1%
Unemployment statistics were redefined starting in the early 1960s by the Kennedy Administration. First they took out the "discouraged", people who wanted a job, but had stopped looking. Under the Reagan Administration, the workforce was expanded by adding in members of the U.S. military, who were by definition "employed", thus shrinking the percentage of "unemployed". The Clinton Administration reduced the number of households sampled from 60,000 to 50,000 and "a disproportionate number of the dropped households were in the inner cities." Phillips doesn’t talk about prisoners, but we have greatly increased our prison population, most of those incarcerated are working-age men, and none are counted in the workforce. Phillips claims that "Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today’s U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 percent and 12 percent." [Poking around at http://www.bls.gov/cps/ reveals that, in 2007, 146 million of us were working, 7 million were unemployment, and 4.7 million were classified as not in the workforce but "wanted a job"; an additional 2.3 million Americans were in prison, presumably due to their energetic work habits in illegal trades. The "U-6" series, published by the BLS but almost never reported by newspapers, shows an unemployment rate right now of 9.1 percent.]
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/04/23/cooking-gdp-un...
> Phillips doesn’t talk about prisoners, but we have greatly increased our prison population, most of those incarcerated are working-age men, and none are counted in the workforce.
Many prisons have inmates who work at various jobs. Should those jobs count? If not, why should we count folks in prisons?
I don't think that prisoners should be counted simply because they are incapable of finding real employment. It's despicable that the prisons only pay between a nickel and a quarter for an hour's labor. Worse yet is the private prison system that is funded by the government but can sell goods manufactured by what is, essentially, an enslaved people.
For this reason, those two million Americans cannot be considered as part of the real workforce, as their labor is essentially free.
We should count the number of prisoners as an extra hardship on our economy. There is the cost of keeping them in prison, the cost of when they get out, the cost of the children they have but are not raising.
Count yourself as one of the ones putting them in prison. For the public, it's not a hardship, but rather, an investment. Now, undoubtedly, destructive crime adversely affects the economy and community stability. Let's just hope that those in prison truly threaten enough harm to warrant the investment, or else we're wasting our money (It's always "ours" until you find yourself on the other side, right?) while severely damaging lives of others, such as the children you mentioned.
There is a more complex breakdown that what you suggest: "For the public, it's not a hardship, but rather, an investment."
For some of the prisoners, for some of the public, its an investment. For some of this same public, some of the other prisoners, it is a hardship. For some other part of the public, the breakdown is different.
The prison issue should eventually come into focus as the complex problem it is. Up to now its not talked about enough for most (including myself) to have a clear opinion.