The War on Normal People_The Truth about America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future
Page 24
“Purpose, meaning, identity, fulfillment, creativity, autonomy—all these things that positive psychology has shown us to be necessary for well-being are absent in the average job” : Derek Thompson, “A World without Work,” The Atlantic, July–August 2015.
4 in 10 Americans reported working more than 50 hours…: Bob Sullivan, “Memo to Work Martyrs: Long Hours Make You Less Productive, CNBC, January 26, 2015.
CHAPTER 8: THE USUAL OBJECTIONS
“You have to recognize realistically that AI is qualitatively different…”: Andrew Ross Sorkin, “Partisan Divide over Economic Outlook Worries Ben Bernanke,” New York Times, April 24, 2017.
Fifty-eight percent of cross-sector experts polled by Bloomberg in 2017…: Shift: The Commission on Work, Workers, and Technology, “Report of Findings,” May 16, 2017.
… employers think you’re a major risk if you haven’t been unemployed for six months…: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016), p. 95.
The field has a high rate of turnover…: Alana Semuels, “Who Will Care for America’s Seniors?” The Atlantic, April 27, 2015.
“Some would call it a dead-end job”: Alana Semuels, “Who Will Care for America’s Seniors?” The Atlantic, April 27, 2015.
… Mathematica Policy Research compared TAA recipients…: Ronald D’Amico and Peter Z. Schochet, “The Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program: A Synthesis of Major Findings,” Mathematica Policy Research, December 2012.
A similar evaluation of Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program…: Victor Tan Chen, Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), pp. 63–71.
“I still haven’t got a job in my skill”: Victor Tan Chen, Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), pp. 63–71.
The unemployment rate also doesn’t take into account people who are underemployed…: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016), p. 39.
… underemployment rate of recent college graduates…: “The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York, October 4, 2017.
The U6 unemployment rate was 8.3 percent in September 2017: “Unemployment Rate—U6 (2000–2017),” PortalSeven.com, September 2017.
CHAPTER 9: LIFE IN THE BUBBLE
The data presented in Tables 9.1. and 9.2. was retrieved from those universities’ Career Services Offices or their reports on the students’ destinations after graduation. The sources of information used are noted below:
Harvard Crimson Report: Harvard Crimson Report, “The Graduating Class of 2016 by the numbers,” http://features.thecrimson.com/2016/senior-survey/post-harvard/, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Yale Office of Career Strategy, “First Destination Report: Class of 2016,” http://ocs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/OCS, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Princeton Career Services, “Annual Report 2014–2015,” https://careerservices.princeton.edu/sites/career/files/Career Services, retrieved May 15, 2017.
University of Pennsylvania Career Services, “Class of 2016 Career Plans Survey Report,” http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/files/CAS_CPSurvey2016.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Students after Graduation,” http://web.mit.edu/facts/alum.html, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Office of the Provost, MIT Institutional Research, “2016 MIT Senior Survey,” http://web.mit.edu/ir/surveys/senior2016.html, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Stanford BEAM, “Class of 2015 Destinations Report,” https://beam.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/stanford-_destinations_final_web_view.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Brown University Center for Careers, “CareerLAB by the Numbers, 2015–2016 Academic Year,” https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/sites/brown.edu.campus-life.support.careerlab/files/uploads/15166_CLAB_By the Numbers Flyer_FNL_0.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Dartmouth Office of Institutional Research, “2016 Senior Survey,” https://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/2016seniordartmouth.html, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Dartmouth Office of Institutional Research, “2016 Cap and Gown Survey—Final Results,” https://www.dartmouth.edu/~oir/2016_cap_and_gown_survey_results_infographic_final.pdf, retrieved May 23, 2017.
Cornell Career Services, “Class of 2016 Postgraduate Report,” http://www.career.cornell.edu/resources/surveys/upload/2016_PostGrad-Report_New.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Columbia University Center for Career Education, “2016 Graduating Student Survey Results,” https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/2016 GSS—CC %26 SEAS-UG.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Johns Hopkins University Student Affairs, “Post Graduate Survey Class of 2013 Highlights,” https://studentaffairs.jhu.edu/careers/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/03/JHU-PGS-2013-Copy.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
University of Chicago College Admissions, “Class of 2016 Outcomes Report,” http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/pdfs/uchicago-class-of-2016-outcomes.pdf, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Georgetown Cawley Career Education Center, “Class of 2016 Class Summary,” https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/nzzjv0ogpr7uwplifb4w20j5a43jvp3a, retrieved May 15, 2017.
Duke University Student Affairs, “Class of 2011 Statistics,” https://studentaffairs.duke.edu/career/statistics-reports/career-center-senior-survey/class-2011-statistics, retrieved May 15, 2017.
The use of prescription drugs is at an all-time high among college students…: Isabel Kwai, “The Most Popular Office on Campus,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2016.
In 2014, an American College Health Association survey…: American College Health Association, “National College Health Assessment, Spring 2014, Reference Group Executive Summary.”
Gender imbalances on many campuses…: Lisa Wade, American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 2017), p. 15.
… private company ownership is down more than 60 percent among 18-to 30-year-olds…: Ruth Simon and Caelainn Barr, “Endangered Species: Young U.S. Entrepreneurs. New Data Underscore Financial Challenges and Low Tolerance for Risk among Young Americans,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2015.
“The message wasn’t explicit…”. J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (New York: Harper Collins, 2016), pp. 56–57.
The meritocracy was never intended to be a real thing…: David Freedman, “The War on Stupid People,” The Atlantic, July–August 2016.
“The way we treat stupid people in the future…”: Yuval Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), p. 100.
CHAPTER 10: MINDSETS OF SCARCITY AND ABUNDANCE
A UK study found that the most common shared trait across entrepreneurs…: David G. Blanchflower and Andrew J. Oswald, “What Makes an Entrepreneur?” 1998, retrieved from http://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/entrepre.pdf.
A U.S. survey found that in 2014 over 80 percent of startups were initially self-funded…: Carly Okyle, “The Year in Startup Funding (Infographic),” Entrepreneur, January 3, 2015.
… the majority of high-growth entrepreneurs were white (84 percent) males (72 percent…: Jordan Weissman, “Entrepreneurship: The Ultimate White Privilege?” The Atlantic, August 16, 2013.
Barbara Corcoran and Daymond John both described growing up dyslexic and being told that school wasn’t going to be their route to success: Kim Lachance Shandrow, “How Being Dyslexic and ‘Lousy in School’ Made Shark Tank Star Barbara Corcoran a Better Entrepreneur,” Entrepreneur, September 19, 2014.
A study of tens of thousands of JPMorgan Chase customers saw average monthly income volatility of 30–40 percent per month…: Patricia Cohen, “Steady Jobs, with Pay and Hours That Are Anything But,” New York Times, May 31, 2017.
The average worker dreads schedule volatility so
much…: Alexandre Mas and Amanda Pallais, “Valuing Alternative Work Arrangements,” National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2016.
Eldar Shafir… and Sendhil Mullainathan conducted a series of studies…: Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (New York: Times Books, 2013), pp. 49–56. Also see Amy Novotney, “The Psychology of Scarcity,” Monitor on Psychology 45, no. 2 (February 2014).
CHAPTER 11: GEOGRAPHY IS DESTINY
Many of the facts about Youngstown’s rise and fall are from Sean Posey, “America’s Fastest Shrinking City: The Story of Youngstown, Ohio,” Hampton Institute, June 18, 2013.
The history of Youngstown is from Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown, Culture America (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), pp. 47–53.
The city was transformed by a psychological and cultural breakdown: Derek Thompson, “A World without Work,” The Atlantic, July–August 2015.
“I thought we were rich”: PBS News Hour, “How Rust Belt City Youngstown Plans to Overcome Decades Of Decline,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKuGNt1w0tA.
“I started off working with a shovel and pick…”: Chris Arnade, “White Flight Followed Factory Jobs out of Gary, Indiana. Black People Didn’t Have a Choice,” The Guardian, March 28, 2017.
“I really would like to move someplace more beautiful…”: Chris Arnade, “White Flight Followed Factory Jobs out of Gary, Indiana. Black People Didn’t Have a Choice,” The Guardian, March 28, 2017.
“Between 1950 and 1980… patterns of social pathology emerged…”: Howard Gillette, Jr., Camden after the Fall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), pp. 12–13.
…“a major metropolitan area run by armed teenagers with no access to jobs or healthy food”…: Matt Taibbi, “Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch from America’s Most Desperate Town,” Rolling Stone, December 11, 2013.
… since 1970 the difference between the most and least educated U.S. cities has doubled…: Tyler Cowen, Average Is Over: Powering America beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation (New York: Penguin Books, 2013), pp. 172–173.
Fifty-nine percent of American counties saw more businesses close than open…: “Dynamism in Retreat: Consequences for Regions, Markets and Workers,” Economic Innovation Group, February 2017.
California, New York, and Massachusetts accounted for 75 percent of venture capital in 2016…: Richard Florida, “A Closer Look at the Geography of Venture Capital in the U.S.” CityLab, February 23, 2016.
A series of studies by the economists Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren…: Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren, “The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility: Childhood Exposure Effects and County-Level Estimates,” Equality of Opportunity, May 2015.
David Brooks described such towns vividly…: David Brooks, “What’s the Matter with Republicans?” New York Times, July 4, 2017.
CHAPTER 12: MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN
… when manufacturing work becomes less available…: David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, “When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage-Market Value of Men,” National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2017.
Average male wages [for working-class men] have declined since 1990 in real terms: Jared Bernstein, “Real Earnings, Real Anger,” Washington Post, March 9, 2016.
A Pew research study showed that many men are foregoing or delaying marriage…: Kim Parker and Renee Stepler, “As U.S. Marriage Rate Hovers at 50 percent, Education Gap in Marital Status Widens,” Pew Research Center, September 14, 2017. Also see Wendy Wang and Kim Parker, “Record Share of Americans Have Never Married,” Pew Research Center, September 24, 2014.
… one in six men in America of prime age (25–54) are either unemployed or out of the workforce…: Derek Thompson, “The Missing Men,” The Atlantic, June 27, 2016.
Young men without college degrees have replaced 75 percent of the time they used to spend…: Ana Swanson, “Study Finds Young Men Are Playing Video Games Instead of Getting Jobs,” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2016.
Women are now the clear majority of college graduates: Alex Williams, “The New Math on Campus,” New York Times, February 5, 2010.
Marriage has declined for all classes in the past 40 years…: Anthony Cilluffo, “Share of Married Americans Is Falling, but They Still Pay Most of the Nation’s Income Taxes,” Pew Research Center, April 12, 2017.
Of the 11 million families with children under age 18 and no spouse present, 8.5 million are single mothers: “2016 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement,” U.S. Census Bureau.
… growing up with stably married parents makes one more likely to succeed at school, but that an absent father had a bigger impact on boys…: William J. Doherty, Brian J. Willoughby, and Jason L. Wilde, “Is the Gender Gap in College Enrollment Influenced by Nonmarital Birth Rates and Father Absence?” Family Relations, September 24, 2015.
“As a child, I associated accomplishments in school with femininity…”: J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (New York: Harper Collins, 2016), pp. 245–246.
… one 2015 U.S. Centers for Disease Control study finding as many as 14 percent of boys received a diagnosis: National Center of Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),” https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/adhd.htm.
70 percent of valedictorians were girls in 2012: Jon Birger, Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game (New York: Workman, 2015), p. 32.
… 50 percent of Americans live within 18 miles of their mother…: Quoctrung Bui and Claire Cain Miller, “The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles from Mom,” New York Times, December 23, 2015.
CHAPTER 13: THE PERMANENT SHADOW CLASS: WHAT DISPLACEMENT LOOKS LIKE
“[W]e thought it must be wrong… we just couldn’t believe that this could have happened…: Jessica Boddy, “The Forces Driving Middle-Aged White People’s ‘Deaths of Despair,’” National Public Radio, March 23, 2017.
Coroners’ offices in Ohio have reported being overwhelmed…: Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “Amid Opioid Overdoses, Ohio Coroner’s Office Runs Out of Room for Bodies,” New York Times, February 2, 2017.
The five states with the highest rates of death linked to drug overdoses…: Josh Katz, “Drug Deaths in America Are Rising Faster Than Ever,” New York Times, June 5, 2017. Also see Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, “2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Detailed Tables,” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, MD, 2016.
Addiction is so widespread that in Cincinnati hospitals now require universal drug testing for pregnant mothers…: Laura Newman, “As Substance Abuse Rises, Hospitals Drug Test Mothers, Newborns,” Clinical Laboratory News, March 1, 2016.
… Purdue Pharma, which was fined $635 million in 2007 for misbranding the drug…: Mike Mariani, “How the American Opiate Epidemic Was Started by One Pharmaceutical Company,” The Week, March 4, 2015.
“[W]e know of no other medication routinely used for a nonfatal condition that kills patients so frequently”: Sonia Moghe, Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,” CNN, October 14, 2016.
“We are seeing an unbelievably sad and extensive heroin epidemic…”: “The Heroin Business Is Booming in America,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 11, 2017.
The lifetime value of a disability award is about $300K for the average recipient: Steve Kroft, “Disability, USA,” CBS News, October 10, 2013.
About 40 percent of claims are ultimately approved…: “Annual Statistical Report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, 2015,” U.S. Social Security Administration.
One law firm generated $70 million in revenue in one year alone…: Chana Joffe-Walt, “Unfit for Work: The Startling Rise of Disability in America,” National Public Radio
, http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work, retrieved November 8, 2017.
… Social Security Disability Insurance today essentially serves as unemployment insurance…: David H. Autor and Mark G. Duggan, “The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2006.
“If the American public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits.”: Steve Kroft, “Disability, USA,” CBS News, October 10, 2013.
In 2013, 56.5 percent of prime-age men 25–54 who were not in the workforce reported receiving disability payments: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016), p. 118.
CHAPTER 14: VIDEO GAMES AND THE (MALE) MEANING OF LIFE
… 22 percent of men between the ages of 21 and 30 with less than a bachelor’s degree reported not working at all in the previous year…: Ana Swanson, “Study Finds Young Men Are Playing Video Games Instead of Getting Jobs,” Chicago Tribune, September 23, 2016.
… young men without college degrees have replaced 75 percent of the time…: Peter Suderman, “Young Men Are Playing Video Games Instead of Getting Jobs. That’s OK. (For Now.),” Reason, July 2017.
More U.S. men aged 18–34 are now living with their parents…: Kim Parker and Renee Stepler, “As U.S. Marriage Rate Hovers at 50 Percent, Education Gap in Marital Status Widens,” Pew Research Center, September 14, 2017.
The Annual Time Use survey in 2014 indicated high levels of time spent “attending gambling establishments”…: Nicholas Eberstadt, Men without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Press, 2016), p. 93.
CHAPTER 15: THE SHAPE WE’RE IN/DISINTEGRATION