Many Americans also wonder why it seems that many Americans are hurting if the unemployment rate is at an ideal place. The reason for this is that unemployment rates are greatly affected by factors such as geography and education level. For instance, in West Virginia, there are some counties with unemployment rates of 12 or 13 percent while in Silicon Valley, the unemployment rate is just about zero. In terms of education level, college graduates experience an unemployment rate of 2.3 percent while high school dropouts currently handle a rate of 7 percent.
In all, it is good news that the unemployment rate is decreasing. With more Americans having jobs, more money can be spent and the U.S. economy can experience growth. While it is impossible to ever have an unemployment rate of 0 percent, it is important that steps are taken in order to assist those groups of people with higher rates of unemployment in order to insure their well-being.
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/31/464856256/why-some-still-cant-find-jobs-as-the-economy-nears-full-employment
http://www.npr.org/2016/01/31/464856256/why-some-still-cant-find-jobs-as-the-economy-nears-full-employment
Many Americans really are not familiar with "full employment", where we are currently at is really quite good especially when we consider job mobility among other factors. The high school dropout unemployment rate is much higher than the college grad unemployment rate, and I wonder if this gap will continue to increase as we see minimum wage continue to increase (especially because of acts such as the Raise the Wage Act which would increase it to $12/hr by 2020). While this would increase wages for some, I think that it could heighten unemployment for less educated individuals as we move forward into the future since companies may not be able to employ as many individuals with the higher minimum wage.
ReplyDeleteI think the gap will only continue to widen for those with and college degree and those without in respect to the unemployment rate. We have already begun to see the wage gap widen for those with a college degree and those without. After the Great Recession wages decreased for workers both college graduates and non college graduates. However, non college graduates took a much larger hit in their wages than did college graduates. I think this as well as the unemployment rates will continue to "favor" college graduates in the future as jobs are becoming more and more specialized in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteI think that part of the confusion with the unemployment rate being low despite people looking for jobs lies in the fact that there are certain industries that are looking to hire and others that are not. For example, there is a high demand for those who are tech savy, but there is not necessarily a high supply of those workers. People may not be able to attain the many job openings because they do not have the educational qualifications. This can cause people to believe that there are no jobs available when, in fact, there are many.
ReplyDeleteA relationship between unemployment and inflation are inversely related. So it's interesting to see how things balance out in an economy. So there's pros and cons to different things happening in the economy, but it's easy to look at things from one angle. It's the similar line of thinking that raising minimum wage is going to solve a poverty problem. I think we should do whatever we can to help those without a job and those in poverty, but it may need to be a multidimensional approach.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting, especially when talking about unemployment and education levels. People that have not been in the labor force and re-enter looking for a job have a very hard time being successful in doing so. A lot of this may have to do with their education level, especially with people of older age. A college degree today is almost the equivalent of a high school diploma then and in today's job market, a graduate school education is what sets one apart.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that unemployment can be a rather confusing statistic. For one, it does not take into account those who are underemployed, that is, individuals who are not working at their respective education level or they simply aren't working the hours they require to lead their normal lifestyle. The unemployment rate also doesn't take into account those that dropped out of the labor force due to lack of success, also called discouraged workers. It is because of these factors that people may not understand how we can be at full employment when they see issues with employment around them.
ReplyDeleteThis is defiantly a concerning topic, especially if you look at the comments of this article and see people who are in the 40's and 50's are jobless and suffering. This article did a good job describing which demographic is effected the most. The article described how the younger people looking for jobs will be successful, which could primarily be due to them being more tech-savvy. The people that will struggle to find jobs the most are older (especially women). It will be interesting to see how this will play out over the next couple years, especially since there were new changes to social security claiming benefits.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete