There is _always_ a job for a journalist who will trot out this story and interview economists who understand nothing. Tom Walker can correct him on his date of 1851 but this journalist refuses to be corrected on what he and most economists know. Galbraith tried and failed.
Will surge of older workers take jobs from young? By MATT SEDENSKY Associated Press Published: Friday, Jan. 3, 2014 - 9:09 am Last Modified: Friday, Jan. 3, 2014 - 1:29 pm CHICAGO -- It's an assertion that has been accepted as fact by droves of the unemployed: Older people remaining on the job later in life are stealing jobs from young people. One problem, many economists say: It isn't supported by a wisp of fact. "We all cannot believe that we have been fighting this theory for more than 150 years," said April Yanyuan Wu, a research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, who co-authored a paper last year on the subject. Why are economists always so burdened with denying this, as they have been denying it forever? > The theory Wu and other economists are fighting is known as "lump of labor," > and it has maintained traction in the U.S., particularly in a climate of high > unemployment. The theory dates to 1851 and says if a group enters the labor > market — or in this case, remains in it beyond their normal retirement date — > others will be unable to gain employment or will have their hours cut. > > It's a line of thinking that has been used in the U.S. immigration debate and > in Europe to validate early retirement programs, and it relies on a simple > premise: That there are a fixed number of jobs available. In fact, most > economists dispute this. When women entered the workforce, there weren't > fewer jobs for men. The economy simply expanded. > > > Read more here: > http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/03/6044167/will-surge-of-older-workers-take.html#storylink=cpy Galbraith refutes them. > Still, many remain unconvinced. > > James Galbraith, a professor of government at the University of Texas at > Austin, has advocated for a temporary lowering of the age to qualify for > Social Security and Medicare to allow older workers who don't want to remain > on the job a way to exit and to spur openings for younger workers. > > He doesn't buy the comparison of older workers to women entering the > workforce and says others' arguments on older workers expanding the economy > don't make sense when there are so many unemployed people. If there was a > surplus of jobs, he said, there would be no problem with people working > longer. But there isn't. > > "I can't imagine how you could refute that. The older worker retires, the > employer looks around and hires another worker," he said. "It's like refuting > elementary arithmetic." > > > but the journalist persists, and finds Jonathan Gruber, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who edited a book on the subject for the National Bureau of Economic Research, said it's a frustrating reality of his profession: That those things he knows as facts are disputed by the populace. Economists are so firm in denial of jobs being hard to find because to admit otherwise is to concede the market isn't working to always keep workers fully employed. The market not working, you say? Impossible. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
