Why are there so many Americans still working?

by philg

Happy Halloween! It has felt like Halloween for the past 20 months or so, with ordinary Americans dressing up as surgeons or asbestos remediators in masks.

I’ve recently had occasion to take some prison galley-style JetBlue flights, in which flight attendants walk up and down the aisle looking for people who aren’t wearing masks correctly. The ticket counter at PBI has a high clear plastic barrier that makes communication between agent and customer almost impossible (while simultaneously providing no protection against COVID, according to the New York Times). The workers behind the plastic, have been stuck wearing masks for 8 hours per day for all 20 months of “14 days to flatten the curve.” I asked a 13-year veteran of the ticket counter how many of her colleagues had quit. “Everyone who could retire has done so,” she responded. She was sick of wearing a mask, found it frustrating to try to make herself understood, and did not think the mask was effective at preventing COVID infection. Like most other customer service businesses, the airport is extremely short staffed and, despite a reduced passenger volume, lines can get long (except at TSA, which seems to have infinite capacity!).

There has been a lot of media coverage regarding how few Americans are working. And, indeed, the stats do show that Americans are passionate about relaxing at home:

What I find confusing, however, is that so many Americans are working at these masks-all-day jobs (though I am grateful for their service!). It can’t be because the masks don’t bother them, since the people I’ve talked to say that they do find the masks uncomfortable. It can’t be because there aren’t any no-mask-required jobs available because, at least here in Florida, there are plenty. It shouldn’t be because it is too hard to transition to disability, because “Long COVID” is a recognized disability and the symptoms encompass almost any medical malady.

I’m not saying that labor force participation should be 0%. After all, there are plenty of high-paid masked jobs (surgeon) and plenty of medium-paid no-mask jobs (work from home, e.g.). But why isn’t labor force participation rate down closer to the Puerto Rican number (42 percent)? It can’t be fun to spend the whole day wearing a mask and asking in-a-rush airline passengers to repeat themselves.

Related:

  • “4.3 million workers are missing. Where did they go?” (WSJ, 10/14; paywall-free version): More than a year and a half into the pandemic, the U.S. is still missing around 4.3 million workers. That’s how much bigger the labor force would be if the participation rate—the share of the population 16 or older either working or looking for work—returned to its February 2020 level of 63.3%. In September, it stood at 61.6%. … Of 52 economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal, 22 predicted that participation would never return to its pre-pandemic level.

16 thoughts on “Why are there so many Americans still working?”

  2. > JetBlue flights, in which flight attendants walk up and down the aisle looking for people who aren’t wearing masks correctly.

    I took 4 Delta flights in last 2 weeks, and, to my surprise, they didn’t do that. Our flight landed in Sacramento to refuel due to “unspecified” security issue in LAX, and some passengers spent this hour on the ground with masks on the chin, and nobody cared.

    • I have taken a few JB flights over the last month one with an officious stu and the others they just ignored what the passengers were up to. At the Newark Amtrak station the other day the employee locked in an enclosed glass both with a microphone refused to tell me the track I needed to go to till I covered my mouth with a mask— and then of course he couldn’t hear me. Go figure.

  4. 20 years ago, coworkers used to say the reason they still work, despite houses just passing 5x their salaries, was to just survive rather than to accumulate any wealth or have any nice things. The media does a good job convincing them the runaway housing costs are because of a transient supply chain disruption.

  5. Because there are still

    1) A lot of middle-and-upper middle class people who can work remotely or have moved to a new location where they feel comfortable working, like the Hamptons.

    2) A lot of people who would rather die than depend on government assistance to live. Their numbers are dwindling and it’s very important we discourage them as much as possible.

    3) There are still some people who don’t qualify for various forms of disability and government benefits to pay for things like gasoline, food and heating for their homes so they are “bitter clingers” who have to work every day. Like the woman who runs the register at my local convenience store, lives and cares for her old, disabled mother. She could plausibly get herself fired and take unemployment, but it would be a bit less than she earns in her current job and she has told me: “Oh, if I had to stay home 24/7 with my mother, we wouldn’t last ten days.”

    4) Witches in Salem, MA are open for business and they run a number of stores, houses of Witchcraft practice and worship in the Salem Business District.

    https://www.spiritualtravels.info/spiritual-sites-around-the-world/north-america/salem-massachusetts-americas-witch-city/the-witches-of-salem-today/

    “Today there are between 800 and 1600 witches in Salem. A number of the downtown shops are operated by Wiccans and sell herbs, charms, talismans, and other magical equipment. If you want to have your palm read or a spell cast to find a new love, there are plenty of people in Salem who can help you out.”

    5) Some old brick-and-mortar businesses have died off during the Pandemic but others have arisen to take their place. In a town near me, the Friendly’s restaurant finally shuttered last year, but a new Marijuana dispensary popped up less than 100 yards away and it appears to be doing a brisk business.

  6. In my town, there is a relatively new employee at one of the town businesses. He is a young, thin, delicate thing wisp of a thing and I know he identifies as one of the 150+ alternate genders under the 2SLGBTQQIA+ umbrella. He apparently moved here several months ago with a couple of other friends from out of town. Now they have local jobs and residence here, so they can vote for members of the local school board, which is run by a guy who is powerful in his local chapter of the Teamsters Union. This has also happened several times in the past, particularly during Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for MA Senate: suddenly a bunch of people you’ve never seen before are astroturfed into town so they can vote here. After the election ends, they disappear!

    All politics is local, and if you want to change local politics, you have to have local people voting for your local politicians running for office, locally. Most town elections are decided by a very small number of people due to voter apathy.

  8. Latest news from Bloomberg and Nuveen tonight: Buy Farmland! But buy it in a place where there’s plenty of water, so that it’s a hedge and a stable investment with moderate returns.

  9. Next we must free surgeons, dentists, hygienists, manicurists, fire fighters, wood workers, fabricators, and welders from this mask tyranny! Free all the oppressed faces!

    • They are all free from the mask tyranny. No one is forcing them to wear the mask, it is part of their job that they choose to pursue and they wear the mask *only* while-performing-their-work and as-needed. Furthermore, if they want to, they can quit their job and find a job that doesn’t require wearing a mask. They have that option and freedom. But they are still required to wear the hijab, sorry, I mean the mask, if they enter a restaurant (they will remove it as soon as they sit down), enter a bank, ride in public transportation, etc.

  10. America is allegedly suffering from a shortage of more than 80,000 truck drivers needed to handle our supply chain crisis. I have a friend who is an independent trucker and although he makes pretty good money, that’s all he does is complain. The people at the loading centers don’t work. The mechanics don’t work. The people at the restaurants don’t work. The people in the government don’t work. Nothing works.

    He’s always been a bit of a chronic complainer, so I don’t know who to believe. It looks like American Airlines is suffering from a shortage of ground crew, staff and pilots. The FDNY is closing something like 20 fire houses because their fire crews won’t get vaccinated by the deadline. All over the country, states that are going to enforce vaccine orders are seeing an exodus of their government workers.

    It sounds like there are a lot of jobs available ranging from long-haul truck driver to government phone worker to airline pilot. If you listen to NPR, the job market has never been so rosy, and in fact they said just a couple days ago that it was “tight.” They were trying to put the best possible spin on Biden’s economy, so they brought in some sunny and upbeat experts to underscore how great things were.

    I have another friend who is a healthcare worker at a large hospital in a Northeastern state. She doesn’t seem to work as much as she takes vacations and travels around taking pictures. Next we she’s in Cabo. She’s trying to decide whether the scenery is better in Alaska or the Gulf Coast of Texas for her next gig, so she can travel some more and hit more national parks this year and next year.

    I think we’ve reached the point where the average person in this country, sampling 10 different sources about the economy, will get 10 completely different and wildly divergent answers about where it is and where it is going to go.

    There finally does seem to be consensus that yes indeed, inflation is real and will last until approximately 2023 at somewhere near the present level. I was listening to Bloomberg News last night on satellite radio to confirm this and listen to their advice concerning investment strategies to protect against inflation, and then what the Fed should do in the short to medium term to address it. Again, wildly conflicting opinion. No sooner did one commentator say: “The Fed should do X” than the next person said: “Can I push back against that a little?”

    “Of course!”
    “I think they should do -X…..”

    It all reminds me of nothing so much as the opening to a great essay on the Economy that I read from our host back in November of 2008:

    https://philip.greenspun.com/politics/economic-recovery

    “Just as Hoover and Roosevelt did in the early 1930s, the government changes its strategy for assisting recovery every few months. Congress and the Treasury Department will try something. If it doesn’t work, a month or two later they try something else. This gives them the appearance of being clueless or helpless or both.”

    Of course, after November of 2008, very little of what our host prescribed in that article was actually done, and all of us know what the aftermath of THAT was. So buckle up!

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