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This show (haven't read the book) covers the issue of our unemployment rate not telling the real story.
The author presents his argument for "full employment" being more like 2.5% than 5% due to underemployment: people want more hours. Far from having too many "leaners" we have a lot of lifters with not enough to lift. Wages are not growing with a falling unemployment rate.
Whereas unemployment was traditionally x% have a job, x% don't, you can't notch up "citizen with a job" as a basically satisfied person any more. Depression and anxiety rise. Drug use as well.
Having the reserve fiddle with the interest rate is not going to be enough, and is likely too little too late. Tax cuts to the top income earners is also not going to work.
Broadly (I can't summarise in one sentence a book I haven't read, and be honest my uni economics stuff is from 1995) the argument is for a drop in GST/VAT, infrastructure spending, help for working people with things like free and subsidised child care.
Countries like the UK who haven't really got a functioning government are at the mercy of the economic troubles coming. Their reserve banks have run out of options, and the people who have control of other options are absent or ignoring the issues and blaming Johnny Foreigner.
Populists like Trump and Farage and others are taking advantage of this. Putin is knocking at the door. Unsurprisingly you have Trump now pointing to the US unemployment rate of 3-4% as a great victory, where he was calling the unemployment rate "more like 42%" when he was campaigning a few years ago. Little has changed but the noises being made.
The US has a great big hole in their labour market full of males in their prime working age. Some believe these guys are sitting at home on opioids staring at screens, many primed to erupt offline as they are online in seedy parts of Reddit. Many are already marching, burning stuff, and running cars through crowds.
Low unemployment rates are usually a measure than the economy is doing fine — but this time, it isn't.
Leading economist Danny Blanchflower joins Richard Aedy to discuss how underemployment isn't appreciated by policy makers, why it's linked to low wage growth and how being underemployed is contributing to widespread despair.
Guest: David (Danny) Blanchflower, Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, Author of Not Working: Where have all the good jobs gone? Princeton University Press @D_Blanchflower
The author presents his argument for "full employment" being more like 2.5% than 5% due to underemployment: people want more hours. Far from having too many "leaners" we have a lot of lifters with not enough to lift. Wages are not growing with a falling unemployment rate.
Whereas unemployment was traditionally x% have a job, x% don't, you can't notch up "citizen with a job" as a basically satisfied person any more. Depression and anxiety rise. Drug use as well.
Having the reserve fiddle with the interest rate is not going to be enough, and is likely too little too late. Tax cuts to the top income earners is also not going to work.
Broadly (I can't summarise in one sentence a book I haven't read, and be honest my uni economics stuff is from 1995) the argument is for a drop in GST/VAT, infrastructure spending, help for working people with things like free and subsidised child care.
Countries like the UK who haven't really got a functioning government are at the mercy of the economic troubles coming. Their reserve banks have run out of options, and the people who have control of other options are absent or ignoring the issues and blaming Johnny Foreigner.
Populists like Trump and Farage and others are taking advantage of this. Putin is knocking at the door. Unsurprisingly you have Trump now pointing to the US unemployment rate of 3-4% as a great victory, where he was calling the unemployment rate "more like 42%" when he was campaigning a few years ago. Little has changed but the noises being made.
The US has a great big hole in their labour market full of males in their prime working age. Some believe these guys are sitting at home on opioids staring at screens, many primed to erupt offline as they are online in seedy parts of Reddit. Many are already marching, burning stuff, and running cars through crowds.
Not working — why underemployment matters - ABC listen
Behind rosy employment figures in many countries, including Australia, lies the painful experience of underemployment — people working less than they want to. It could be the reason wage growth hasn't picked up.
www.abc.net.au
Low unemployment rates are usually a measure than the economy is doing fine — but this time, it isn't.
Leading economist Danny Blanchflower joins Richard Aedy to discuss how underemployment isn't appreciated by policy makers, why it's linked to low wage growth and how being underemployed is contributing to widespread despair.
Guest: David (Danny) Blanchflower, Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, Author of Not Working: Where have all the good jobs gone? Princeton University Press @D_Blanchflower