Who is Going to Work For Me?
Whether or not you’re following the Greek economic mess, one
glaring warning light is blinking—we have a similar bloated government.
While
Greece argues about the right solution to its bankrupt system, their biggest
issue is unemployment. Not enough people are working to pay the bills.
Our lower unemployment numbers look good on paper, but the
reality is that 100 million Americans are NOT working.
The largest reduction in
our workforce isn’t retiring the Baby Boomers; it’s the unemployed millennials. In
the late 1990’s 66% of that age group worked. Now it’s down to 55%. In Greece,
half of their young people don’t work either.
Experts disagree on why this is happening, but higher labor
costs and welfare policies that incentivize unemployment aren’t helping. Mike
Rowe, from Dirty Jobs says, “We’re churning out a generation of poorly educated
people with no skill, no ambition, no guidance, and no realistic expectations
of what it means to go to work.”
Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs Discovery Channel |
When Rowe was accused of calling people lazy he responded: “From what
I’ve seen of the species, and what I know of myself, most people — given the
choice — would prefer NOT to work.”
Currently we have the lowest numbers of Americans looking for work while
at the same time having the number of job openings at historic highs.
So what’s
the issue? It’s easier to be unemployed. At least in America being poor comes
with benefits.
As National Review's John Fund explains, we're living in a five-star welfare state with a 2-star fiscal policy. So it makes one wonder who is going to pay for all the benefit programs when
the government runs out of money provided by fewer and fewer workers.
And who
will be around to pay for the benefits I have saved for all my working life?
Maybe these would be good questions for whoever wants to be our next
president—before we become Greece.