The number of adults who are “not in the labor force” (NILF) surged to an all-time high in June to 105.8 million, according to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

With AI becoming increasingly integrated into “white-collar” industries, raising fears of mass job cuts, there have been calls to bring in a so-called universal basic income, or UBI — which pays people for merely existing.

However, Eberstadt warns that this would only worsen the number of dropouts in American society.

“Disruptive technologies in the past have been really great for people who have had skills,” he said. “Their productivity and incomes have gone up a lot.

“They’ve also displaced a lot of labor for people who don’t have skills. It looks like we’re going to be on that same track with AI, wherever it goes in the next 18 months or 10 years,” Eberstadt said.

“When Henry Ford came down the road, I don’t think that anybody had any idea what a combustion engine was going to do in mass-produced cars,” he said.

"But I would not like to see a guaranteed income, a UBI. Because I look at how men who are neither working nor looking for work say that they are spending their days now. And it is very depressing to see what they say they are doing. And I wouldn’t like us to be buying more of that,” he said.

“They are not engaged in civil society, not helping out around the house, not getting out of the house. Spending 2,000 hours a year in front of a screen. That’s a great warm-up act for becoming a statistic in deaths of despair,” he said.

This is basically a third of our population

  • InvalidName2@lemmy.zip
    9·
    4 days ago

    There’s so much I could say about this topic. It’s obvious that the “unemployment” numbers, like so many metrics, don’t reflect the reality of our economic situation even if those numbers are accurate & to be believed. This is a statistic born of anecdotes, as everybody involved has their own story, but I personally don’t find that number shocking or surprising at all. In all my life, I’ve never known this many “working aged” people who are unemployed all at the same time.

    Obviously the boomer and older generation being such a large cohort and largely being retired weighs heavily in this number. But even those folks have a story. Many of them expected they would get a post-retirement job “just to get out of the house” or “for some fun money”, only to find out that they aren’t healthy enough, the jobs are too risky for their health, the jobs don’t pay enough to be worth it, their healthcare access and quality has declined, and so on. Better to stay home and just try to live off whatever they already have.

    For me, I had a great job with a purpose, then DOGE destroyed all that. Then parents’ health declined and I found myself in a position of having to be a caretaker. The job market for my skill set is abysmal and I live in a rural area so local job market is even worse and I don’t think I can juggle a 1+ hour trip to work each day (and back) on top of everything else right now. Fortunately I saved for a rainy day and boy is it ever rainy. Obviously not everyone is/was able to.