That's it people are lazy

 Professor Richard Vedder of Ohio University is an idiot; well he’s an economist, which is basically the same thing. Vedder has an article in the Wall Street Journal where he argues that Americans are working less. The time frame for his assertion is from the mid-17^th century to the late 20^th century. I have a variety of questions for his flawed pseudo research such as:  Who are being included in the study? Women, people of color or slaves as they would have been called at least through part of this time period, are only wages laborers included? How does he control for that? Where his data is coming from? Etc.

He claims that economic growth was about 3.5% per year, but this has dropped to about 1.81% in the last twelve years. Vedder, being a genius has this all figured out, people work less. He claims there has been a decline in proportion of working-age Americans who are employed (he also notes nothing about outsourcing or how that could play a role or the rise of part-time employers) because people are lazy. Vedder, and I don’t doubt this, asserts that the increase in the employment-to-population ratio is because more women are being included as working-age Americans. Sure. I’m sold on that. We now have more people who “count” in the employable group. But the rise in the number of people looking for employment doesn’t have a negative impact on the number of jobs available resulting in an increase in the unemployed? The number of people of workable-age minus employment opportunities yields the unemployed. Not for Vedder.

Vedder argues that there are more working-age people not working. This is his argument:

“The decline [employment-to-population ratio] matters more than you may suppose. If today the country had the same proportion of persons of working age employed as it did in 2000, the U.S. would have almost 14 million more people contributing to the economy. Even assuming that these additional workers would be 25 % [no idea where he gets this number] less productive on average than the existing labor force, U.S. gross domestic product would still be more than 5% higher (800 billion, or about $2,600 more per person) than it actually is. The annual growth rate of GDP would be 2.2%, not 1.91%. The retreat from working in short has had a real impact.”

See this is where I’m confused by economists. They seem to believe everything exists in a vacuum. Where are the jobs people are refusing to take? One cannot really be unemployed unless there is employment out there to have. [Wow, I think I’m dangerously close to understanding philosophy.] For Vedder public policies are to blame. [I don’t think he knows his welfare history.]

• Food Stamps: Vedder claims that people work to eat. If the government provides food stamps then the lazy awful people will not work. Vedder argues that food stamps have increased over time, yes this is true. We let more people qualify for it by getting rid of racial (and clever) restrictions. But then he asserts that because the economy is recovering fewer people should be on them now. Except the poor are usually hurt first and feel the recovery last. Sorry Vedder, pick a new program because your logic demonstrates a gross misunderstanding at best and at worst an inability to do basic research [UMD’s Welfare Research and Training Group has lots of information on the subject].
• Social Security Insurance (Disability): Vedder once again, knowing nothing of the human condition because he’s never met one apparently, argues that American health has improved and thus these payments should be less. But now because health has improved we identify and know about more diseases, people are also living longer because of advancements in health care. That doesn’t mean everyone is perfectly healthy.  He doesn’t take this into account at all. You can read about Nicholas Kristof’s idiocy here, if you want to talk about SSI more. Vedder’s argument only works if everyone is healthy, he ignores that working people tend to suffer from more illnesses (including work related ones) than their academic counterparts.
• Pell grants: Wait, why is this on this list? Oh, he’s making the “we’re over educating the poor argument.” According to Vedder, people should know their place and work low wage jobs without aspiring to anything higher (he did a study on it with Christopher Denhart and Jonathan Robe for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity). He is right people with an undergraduate degree are having a harder time finding employment. He says nothing about the race to the bottom by corporates that results in lower wages or how that could affect this. He also, like so many others doesn’t even acknowledge who Pell Grants help. Just say it Vedder, you don’t want poor people who don’t look like you in your classes.
• Extended unemployment benefits: Nothing motivates you like abject poverty I guess. He argues this is paying people to stay at home. He also seems to lack any understanding of how unemployment or any of these benefits work. He talks about them as if they are free money. Clearly, Vedder has no experience with any of these programs, and they only exist in some abstract terms.

I can’t help but notice Vedder left TANF off the list. Afraid of who will come at you bro?

People pay into these programs through taxes with the expectation that these programs will be available for them if they ever need it. Cutting benefits will push people even further under the poverty line, and as another article by Michael Fletcher of the Washington Post points out, “Nearly a third of the nation’s working families earn salaries so low that they struggle to pay for their necessities, according to a new report [put out by the Working Poor Families Project]. The ranks of the so-called working poor have grown even as the nation has created new jobs for 27 consecutive months and is showing other signs of shaking off the worst effects of the recession.”

The Working Poor Families Project report also includes data from the 2011 American Community Survey that states 32% of working families earn incomes that put them at the poverty level. I can also tell you from my research, the people who have join welfare and food stamps during the recession stay on for shorter periods than those with a history of welfare receipt (we do an annual report on this). Only children receive TANF benefits without the work requirement. Everyone else works or has to prove a disability, which is really difficult. Now, they work low-wage jobs without benefits which can encourage people to turn back to the system if they face illness or pregnancy.

Weird, who to trust, who to trust? People who work with and study this population or some tenured dude who has a very limited understand of the programs has criticizing? Well, you can make that decision for yourselves.

Vedder concludes challenging people to rise up and insist on saving the nation by cutting benefits to the poor. He gives a head nod to worker-based immigration policy (which according to him is also to blame) and taxes because you can’t tax the rich. Then there is this gem: “If more people have less incentive to stay out of the work force, they might seek jobs and help spur economic growth.” Fuck you buddy. This guy doesn’t seem to have a twitter account or I’d be trolling him challenging him to live off the benefits he mentioned here. I’d like to see him eat off of $2 a day.

It's Hard to Be White, at least it is according to James Webb

And apparently Protestants are being persecuted. I'm not without empathy, and my dad's Irish Catholic so we can go rounds on Protestants and Catholics some other time.

Senator Webb wrote a memo in the Wall Street Journal outlining how African Americans and poor whites have both received bad deals throughout American history. I also like how Webb alleges that no one else in the United States has been discriminated against, but have benefited from programs originally aimed to assist African Americans specifically mentioning Asia, Latin America and Africa. I bring this up because we've detained the Japanese and anyone who looked Middle Eastern, who were conveniently left off Webb's list. And currently, Arizona is demanding the papers of people suspected of being illegal...which of course isn't based on race or ethnicity. I think there are 8 other states trying to pass similar laws. I love the sliding scale of oppression: who had it the worst? And Webb is arguing that white privilege is a myth.

I think everyone should get a fair shot at higher education, employment, or anything else, but Webb is just naive asking for other politicians to "Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away."

Really Webb, you'll click your heals together and utopia will descend? I recognize I have white privilege, and sometimes I get the benefits of being a woman...not when it counts like equal pay (really ask me about it sometime). Yeah, we can do better, but pretending that everyone is on equal footing when we execute African American men at a higher rate than anyone else is ridiculous. Webb doesn't mention it in this memo, but I'm guessing someone read the new study out saying that poor whites are at a disadvantage when applying to universities. I wrote about it earlier this week.

Wal-mart Strikes Again!

Wal-Mart is on their way back to federal appeals court in hopes to prevent the sex-discrimination lawsuit from being argued as a class-action lawsuit. Instead Wal-Mart wants each case argued individually (for those who are paying attention this covers more than a million women). The size of the plaintiffs implies that Wal-Mart could be paying billions in damages. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission believes that if Wal-Mart is successful the plaintiffs wouldn't be able to argue a pattern of discrimination for damages and back pay. This is important because as we saw with Lilly Ledbetter people will get caught up in thinking that the individuals are suing for back pay and that they waited too long to file.

Hopefully, Wal-Mart won't win. It would set a bad example and have negative implications for the future of discrimination cases.

This was brought to you today by the Wall Street Journal.