45
votes
Is there mass unemployment in the USA or is there not?
Trump has indeed claimed something along the lines of "there is a better employment rate than ever in the USA right now". Now before the Covid-19 crisis, unemployment rate was at a low level....
- 3,212
43
votes
Accepted
Why is the lack of seasonal agricultural workers considered a problem given the high unemployment rate in every Western country?
I think these countries are in fact approaching this as a problem that has an obvious solution, as you suggest. The issue lies, however, with convincing their populace to work these seasonal jobs, and ...
CDJB♦
- 109k
35
votes
Accepted
Why is Hawaii's unemployment rate so low when they have such little economic freedom?
I'm one of the authors of Freedom in the 50 States. We don't expect economic freedom to correlate with unemployment rates at all. Why not? Basic economics. Unemployment has to do with whether the ...
- 374
33
votes
Why does the "Fight for 15" movement not update its target hourly rate?
Simply because getting support for a $15/hour minimum wage is hard enough as it is. If they were to keep increasing the rate that they are publicly asking for it would make it harder and harder to get ...
- 18.4k
32
votes
What exactly does it mean for a strike to be illegal in the US?
It's important to note that the specific case you've mentioned is a bit unusual in regards to what is legal. You're talking about railway workers, and they are covered by a specific law called the ...
- 53.1k
23
votes
Accepted
Why are wildcat strikes illegal in the United States?
The cynical, pessimistic reason is that wildcat strikes have no real constituency. Obviously employers are against them; they're against strikes in general. Further, they aren't illegal in the sense ...
- 90.3k
21
votes
Why is the lack of seasonal agricultural workers considered a problem given the high unemployment rate in every Western country?
There are significant efforts to recruit unemployed or underemployed locals for seasonal farm work.
In many cases seasonal farm work is actually skilled work, at least if it is to be done quickly and ...
- 116k
21
votes
How can the government improve employment in a capitalistic society?
There are many methods, just as there are many reasons companies will increase or decrease their staff. They range from direct spending, to subsidies to businesses, to providing a better environment ...
- 2,114
21
votes
Accepted
What exactly does it mean for a strike to be illegal in the US?
When you join a union, you delegate authority to enter into contracts binding your individual rights as an ordinary worker to the collective bargaining agreement reached between the union and the ...
- 88.3k
16
votes
Are there EU countries that offer a path to citizenship for non-EU foreign workers?
Questions of citizenship and migration from third countries are reserved to the member states of the EU, so the rules differ between the 28.
EU-wide: The EU "blue card scheme" is modelled on ...
16
votes
What exactly does it mean for a strike to be illegal in the US?
So I used this website for my source. Generally a strike is not protected under the law if it is a slow-down strike (workers work deliberately slow), a sit-down strike (workers occupy space of their ...
- 16.1k
15
votes
Do any US political parties support a reduced-hour work week?
In the USA the closest that exists is the Green Party.
Their platform includes:
The Green Party proposes a third alternative to a job or no job dichotomy: that is to provide everyone a sustainable ...
- 124k
15
votes
What are the common features of pro-union and anti-union laws?
Anti-union laws generally make it harder for:
Unions to form, by allowing employers to discriminate against unionised workers, or requiring onerous processes to be followed for the formation of a ...
- 21.2k
14
votes
Why do nations require that police hires be more scrupulous than average?
Policemen are equipped with the power of the state; in many countries, they have a monopoly on violence, which means that the state legitimizes their use of physical force.
Because of this, ordinary ...
- 37.4k
13
votes
Why did a trade-union and labour movement not arise in the United States, as it did in other developed countries?
There was a big labor movement in the United States, they accomplished quite a bit for workers rights. Unions managed to get worker safety, leave, and no longer get payed in company scrip. These ...
- 14k
12
votes
What negatives could come with union membership being made a prerequisite for employment?
Unions come with tons of problems that don't require lying or rhethoric. Among them:
Unions make things more expensive to make (due to rising labour costs, only some of which is because of higher ...
- 93.3k
11
votes
Why don't unions negotiate members-only contracts in right-to-work states?
Because unions can't unilaterally negotiate terms and conditions for non-union members. It's an agreement between employer and organized workers, and with the addition of the employer setting the ...
- 21k
11
votes
Why is the lack of seasonal agricultural workers considered a problem given the high unemployment rate in every Western country?
Lower Salary requests:
Seasonal workers at the end of the season might go back to their country where there's a lower cost of living (at least for now).
Furthermore, if they have to support a family, ...
- 8,663
11
votes
What proportion of unemployment benefit spending actually goes to the unemployed?
The answer by RickSmith correctly points out that the federal appropriations that cover most of the administrative costs of unemployment insurance have been around $2.5-2.6 billion in recent years. ...
- 19.2k
11
votes
Is there mass unemployment in the USA or is there not?
There is mass unemployment. The unemployment rate is 11.1%, which is certainly quite high by US standards, as you can see from Glorfindel's source. 11.1% is higher than the peak unemployment rate ...
- 37.8k
11
votes
Accepted
How/why was the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation set at a flat $600/week?
Why $600 a week?
When you add $600 to the national average unemployment payment — $371.88 a week at the end of 2019 — the replacement rate goes from 38 percent to almost exactly 100 percent. In other ...
- 36.6k
10
votes
Accepted
Why does the media workforce lean liberal or democrat
Is the media liberal leaning?
To be precise the evidence is that the media is moderate Democrat leaning. As per Pew Research, moderate Democrats find the least bias in the media of any group and ...
- 90.3k
10
votes
Accepted
What leverage do U.S. federal workers' unions have?
The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS) that you've linked in your question actually spells it out when it comes to what federal employees can legally do when it comes to ...
- 216
10
votes
Is there mass unemployment in the USA or is there not?
Mass Unemployment
According to Wolf Street, the BLS numbers are highly misleading.
Essentially, there is a massive discrepancy between the unemployment numbers published by BLS vs. the unemployment ...
- 4,155
10
votes
Why do government employees get pension but not those in private sectors in the US?
Why do you think people in the US do not get pensions? Employer-paid pensions, although less common than they once were, are still a thing: https://www.pensionrights.org/publications/statistic/how-...
- 12.5k
10
votes
What political factors led only Montana to legislate for statutory employment protection (ie, not at will)?
Montana's Wrongful Discharge From Employment Act was adopted in 1987 and is codified at Montana Code Annotated § 39-2-901, et seq. (about five years before I studied it at the University of Michigan ...
- 88.3k
9
votes
Why is Hawaii's unemployment rate so low when they have such little economic freedom?
The other answers do a great job explaining why economic freedom might not be well correlated with unemployment, mine looks at the specifics of the situation in Hawaii.
Living in Hawaii is absurdly ...
- 11.1k
9
votes
Why is Hawaii's unemployment rate so low when they have such little economic freedom?
Unemployment may correlate with economic freedom ceteris paribus, but it's not a 1-1 causality both ways.
For example, China or USSR had unambiguously extra low economic freedom, yet they had pretty ...
- 93.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible