Plan B.

I took a few minutes to dig up our current labor force statistics. These are all available with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the DOL, online.

Lets start with the basics, From ages 16 through 62 only 62.9% of this country works at all, even part time. That means of the not yet retired, but old enough to work populations more than a third of them don't work at all.

Of this 62.9%, 6.2% of them are currently unemployed seeking employment (This is the figure used commonly to reference unemployment rates).

If you want to get right down to it, that's 9 million people and change currently seeking employment.

6.1 million working people are below the prevailing minimum wage. Roughly 4% of the working population isn't even making federal minimum wage, these are mostly your food service industry workers.

The average education level of a AT minimum prevailing wage worker is 13.5 years, meaning they have graduated high school and have had some college.

7.7 million people have multiple jobs. Of these, almost half are recorded as unskilled labor.

The highest unemployment rate coincides directly with the highest skill levels. Doctors, Dentists and Lawyers all clock in with the highest rates among unemployment by job category.

The reality is even further proffered as follows.

42% of this country reports no individual income at all. Less than 20% of these no income individuals are married, more than half have at least one child.

To make up for this 42% of America with no money to speak of it breaks down as follows:

(I had to drag this up from the Social Security Administration website, and their reporting mechanisms are through the IRS)

12 million people receive SSI. That is, income derived from non-retirement age prerequisites, such as disability. Interesting statistic, DOJ reports that in 2014 they prosecuted more than 250,000 cases of defrauding Social Security.

If you were to derive a simple and possibly not as accurate statistic about Food Stamps based on overall working age population you could say 18 million working age, not disabled people draw Food Stamps.



If you were to take all this intelligence on labor statistics you could say that 2/3rds of us work for 1/3rd of us. Now, that is a bit misleading, because your wife might be a stay at home mom, this is understandable but it nonetheless is part of a statistic. The things we are truly interested in are this...

A little over 40% of the living population in America works at all. less that 15% of the population is considered "in retirement" having been of correct age but with reported income. That means, for all intent, nearly 50% of this country doesn't work. When you apply this generalization to other countries...we are awfully lazy.

What I gathered from all this, we spend an awful lot of money on social programs for no returns on the investment at all. now, I'd rather we not have a war on poverty instead I think we should really go after education, and skills, and maybe start teaching etiquette in high school again...