ten million

We're only missing ten million jobs.

a check that would never be repaid

"We eat hotdogs and sauerkraut for lunch. After lunch, my father calls the telephone company and explains to them that he cannot pay his debt. He gets angry over a misunderstanding and berates the customer-service rep. He owes ninety bucks for last month plus three hundred from the winter, but he yells at the lady because before they said he could pay the ninety to keep the line and now she’s telling him three ninety or nothing. But he holds neither sum so the point is moot, and bankruptcy leaves one bitter or quarrelsome. He hangs up and bitches about those corporate mothers. When you lose your phone, you lose call backs from prospective employers too. I listen and despair and resist the urge to write him a check that would never be repaid."

~~ from "My Father's Great Recession" by Alex Kudera

worker participation July 2014

You can follow the link or read below to see that worker participation rose 1/10th of a percent to 62.9, so it is hovering very slightly above the lowest rate recorded in the past ten years. That would be 62.8%, which happens to be what was recorded for 5 of the last 10 months.

I believe this rate refers to the total percentage of Americans over 16 who are counted as being in the workforce, including part-time workers and those who work enough part-time jobs to be counted as working full-time.

So although unemployment rose from 6.1 to 6.2, worker participation also rose from 62.8 and 62.9, which seems to indicate that unemployment is rising because more people are looking for work, which is why we could still see job growth of over 200,000 for the most recent month. At present, I can't substantiate the rumor that every single newly hired worker is being hired in Washington, D.C. to make sure that nothing gets done.

Series Id:           LNS11300000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title:        (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor force status:  Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data:        Percent or rate
Age:                 16 years and over

Download: 

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2004	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	65.8	65.9	66.0	65.9
2005	65.8	65.9	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0
2006	66.0	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.3	66.4
2007	66.4	66.3	66.2	65.9	66.0	66.0	66.0	65.8	66.0	65.8	66.0	66.0
2008	66.2	66.0	66.1	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	65.8
2009	65.7	65.8	65.6	65.7	65.7	65.7	65.5	65.4	65.1	65.0	65.0	64.6
2010	64.8	64.9	64.9	65.2	64.9	64.6	64.6	64.7	64.6	64.4	64.6	64.3
2011	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.0	64.0	64.1	64.2	64.1	64.1	64.0
2012	63.7	63.9	63.8	63.7	63.8	63.8	63.7	63.5	63.6	63.7	63.6	63.6
2013	63.6	63.5	63.3	63.4	63.4	63.5	63.4	63.2	63.2	62.8	63.0	62.8
2014	63.0	63.0	63.2	62.8	62.8	62.8	62.9

Buk on work

Charles Bukowski Rails Against 9-to-5 Jobs in a Brutally Honest Letter (1986) | Open Culture http://t.co/h2AVwmCnYC
— Eric Gilliland (@E_Patrick909) July 17, 2014

I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: “I’ll never be free!”

One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I’m gone) how I’ve come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

yr boy,

Hank

tales of retail

Two articles on retail work in America recently caught my eye: here and here.