A large portion of these guys seem to be basic disability cheats or rely on spouse's disability. Crack down on fraud, and a lot of these jokers will decide they need to work

Interesting. I, too, wonder what happens when the 53 year old hits 70 and suddenly needs health care and lots of it.

I'm not sure how to tell that "a large portion" of them are disability cheats from the story.

maybe the takeaway point here is that quality of life is more than just spending power. people are sacrificing their ability to buy things for a better life experience. a new car isn't worth the crap job you'll need to take to buy it.

If anything, SSDI disability benefits are under-generous, and often only go to workers who are completely unable to work, rather than, say, a carpenter who gets injured and can no longer work at his former job but needs to take up a job as a cashier somewhere.

Assuredly some people abuse the system, but it's such a stingy system to begin with that I highly doubt there are millions of people fradulently receiving SSDI checks, which in any case are quite small. I don't think that's a massive part of this story.

> doing things that they find more fulfilling

This is the bottom 10%, the only "fulfilling" thing they are doing is living off of the stupid females that support them? The only thing dumber than males are the females that support them.

I work with homeless people, a large portion of whom have disability income. I have never seen a disability check over $850, and rarely seen one over $650. This is in a midwestern state with lower expenses, and checks are adjusted in higher cost of living states, but not by much.

There is a huge difference between welfare "cheats" and people who, had they had affordable educational opportunities and a real shot at a decent job, would be happy to overcome a disability. Disability payments are only a "benefit" if your disability is severe enough to keep you from working entirely or almost entirely, or if you are poorly educated enough that a disability that might be worth overcoming for a decent wage costs more to care for medically than a working class job can provide.

As one of those highly educated 55+ males that constantly worries about my job being outsourced to China or India, being laid off so that a younger person can be hired to fill it at a substantially lower salary, I can say that not returning to the workforce is a very attractive choice.

Taking a job at Home Depot or Wal-Mart (without any health benefits) really isn't something I would want to do after all of my years in a technical career field.

Your "father's" retirement plan isn't viable and there really isn't any concern about the welfare of aging employees by corporate America anymore.

And just why should I give a damn about finding an unfulfilling job in my "golden years" after some company has sacked my butt to fatten their bottom-line for investors and awards outrageous golden parachutes to incompetent executives?

As one of those 30-54 year old males who left the job market, I can tell you that all of you are wrong. After the birth of our second child, my wife and I decided it would be financially worthwhile for one of us to become a stay at home parent. Her job paid better and had better benefits than mine, so we decided I would become the homemaker. Not one of you ever thought that maybe some of us are not working for a reason, and that that reason may be for the better. Shame on you

It must be nice to be able to not take a job just because it's 'beneath you'.

Posted by: Steve Palmeter on 08/02/06 at 10:25 AM

Boy, do you have a bug up your ass! Sounds like you've been home with the brats too long!!

Ray, you are joking, right? Please tell me you are joking. I'm a woman. I read. I never get bored. I'm inquisitive and always learning. And I'm not unique among women.

Anyways, one thing I think can be taken from the article is that there appears to be a real lack of work-life balance going on. Why is it harder and harder to work a reasonable number of hours at a decent paying and fulfilling job, and have some spare time to pursue hobbies and other activities? Should we live to work, or work to live?

on what do you base your accusations of women being more shallow and/or limited than men? it has been my experience that these qualities are not gender based.

i think that the reason that this article emphasises men because it deems this more newsworthy than women doing the same thing. i also think that this phenomenon is pretty much restricted to people who are relatively well off as they are the only ones who have the luxury of that choice.

I just would like to say to Ray that it is actually the other way around in my reality. All the women I know consider men inferior in their inner life. Curiosity? About what, the NFL or NBL news? Porn? Would you call that varied interests? Shame on you for calling women inferior.

Additionally, you mention that boredom is the sign of uninquisitive and unimaginative mind - in my opinion, boredom is the sign of a mind that is trapped in the doldrums of reality requirements.

What a dork!

I had intended to add my two cents' worth even before I read Ray's disgusting sexist take on women. This article describes me completely, and I'm sure that I'm not the only woman who has elected to opt out of the consumer-driven corporate-economy madness and live a simple, purposeful life.

Steve P.,
The article wasn't about stay at home dads, or families with multiple incomes. The basis for the article was, in fact, just what Brad reported. Men, aged 30 to 54, who, for one reason or other are unemployed and simply refuse to go back to work. Many of them are single, have no other source of income now have to decided to retire. They have mostly tapped all their savings and investments as well have re-financed their houses two or three times over to cover living expenses. The feeling I got from the article is that these are not "enlightened" or "rennaisance men" but lazy over-inflated egoists who refuse to take a job, essentially the same job, in their chosen fields becuase it is simply missing the unreasonable salary and perks that they required to make them feel like men.

But actually, while it seems to be newsworthy that some men are cutting back their workforce efforts and (gasp) some are at least partly "living off" their wives (a phrase suggesting parasitism) no one seems to notice that, after some decades of declaring the strength, independence, longing for equality etc. there are zillions of women who haven't worked a 35-hour week for money since first giving birth, but no one regards them as parasites.

Additionally, there are not a few married women with no children, or whose children are all grown, who don't condescend to even make a modest contribution to household finances.

Why is that? Why is that socially acceptable? Why isn't it seen as exploitive or parasitic?

The very statistic is just another neocon hoax to hide the real unemployment numbers. These people are some of the new and increasing numbers of hard core unemployed, not taking some "voluntary" free time.

As another one who "Took some time off" when there was no work available for over a year. (I am physically disabled so standing at any counter is not an option). After Unemployment ran out, I was "voluntarily" dropped from the roles of the "looking for work", even as doing so was a full time job in itself.

After some $30K in expenses and abortive schemes to make a living, I finally found work at half my original salery. Thanks to a totally insane health care system, I cannot find a job with health care, and worse, those jobs that do have health care won't hire me because I might use it!

So I lose both ways. I cannot get disability because (due to disability) I learned to work at a computer, and since I can do that, I am not disabled. So add a third way.

Those of you heartless bigots would be the first to scream like little girls if you suddenly found yourself in such a squeeze, even as you, even now, reap benefits from the many patriots before you who fought, and sometimes died, on home battlefields, of mine, and factory, as well as the foriegn ones.

Funny how women on welfare - because they have children - are considered lazy and lack "personal responsibility," and are expected to take a job - any job - because the value of a work ethic is more important than caring for their children.

But guys aren't expected to take jobs that are "beneath" them.

too many comments allready. Internet based business is what we need.

People

you are all missing the point about the article. This is a pathetic attempt by the bush administration to put the blame for massive unemployment on the onemployeed. 15 million illegal aliens, and massive out sourcing are to blame. The notion that all these people suddenly don't want to work is just plain silly.

Yet Bush got in with both houses in 2004...America deserves the mess Bush has made of the economy!

As raygun's treasury man paul craig roberts said in his "nuking the economy" column (easy to find online) -

"Job creation over the last 5 years is the worst on record. We are 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth"

The result of bush's natural incompetence

The quality of jobs, or lack thereof, is a deterrent for most people, male or female, who find themselves seeking employment. The hollow promise of global trade has left very little, save positions that serve the elite class. Considering that the greatest transfer of wealth in history to these elites is a product of collusion between corporate and political wealth forcing pernicious legislation, a coup of RICOH proportions, it is not surprising that engineers would rather stay home than work for the avaricious elites who yanked the rug out from beneath them. By any sane reckoning, frying a burger is not manufacturing.

I read that articles yesterday and agree that the way of the future is the internet--not just for searching and whatnot, but for building businesses.

Working for someone else robs you of your freedom and happiness. Until you're in those men's position, you won't understand the reason they decided not to go back into the work force.

I'm all about building my businesses and contacts online. Try it, you might like it.

As a 36 year-old "voluntarily" unemployed man, I am happy to see other men have seen the light. Why kill yourself working some crappy job? Read my lips people: There is NO job security nowadays! You're better off doing something rewarding, scraping by financially, and enjoying your life. Is it selfish? Yep. About as selfish as a bankrupt corporation cutting your pension after 40 years of loyal service, forcing you to bag groceries at the A&P until the day you die.

As far as health care goes, I'm not worried. The current health care "system" will soon collapse under the weight of its own greed and ineffectiveness. Universal health care is on the way. It's only a matter of time (probably 10-15 years at the most). San Fran already has it, so I'm sure other progressive cities will follow suit with their own modified plans.

Wake up, folks. The script for American life is changing, and at least 10% of us have figured it out. We don't want to play the game anymore. It's rigged. We can't win. Don't waste your life making widgets for a pitiful salary and a pink slip. The American Dream is dead (if it ever really existed). It's time to move on.

Well, deleting those back-and-forths, the comments from the people on the bubble make sense. I was a long married wife and mom and because some idiots in my community decided to play God, my husband was basically worked to death, my mom committed suicide, and my grandchildren, who would have had settled, successful grandparents who could have assisted them to a white collar career, are now locked up into a blue collar future, for which the general consus from the community is I should be grateful for. I'm not; I'm mad.

There are plenty of people out there who think I should be happy to live in subsidized housing and have the chance to work at Wal-Mart; I don't.
I expected to return to school for a MS or PHD and perhaps teach college art. I expected to retire after successfully raising my children. I didn't expect to be
locked out of the life I had prepared my self for. My blog: www.homelessforfive.blogspot.com Portal for my others including my children's stories.

J.R. is right, the game is rigged, moreso now then ever with fewer and fewer good paying jobs. Even though I am on the other side of the fence, I still yearn for the life I was forced out of. Even though I am bitter I still want to put on the character that will allow me to be part of my group again.

For some really interesting info on how massively the money is flowing to "the contributing class," read David Cay Johnston's "Perfectly Legal" (how the game is rigged, etc., subtitle). He looks at some of the very clever, and very hidden, tricks the legislative and executive branches are using to clean out the national treasury and distribute among campaign contributors and workers. (Example I liked best was an IRS reg. change "suggested" in a conference committee report, I think it was, not even discussed in the law itself, about "comparable fares" on private jets--like Jack Welch's 737--which worked out to something like (if I recall correctly) 10% of a commercial airlines ticket.
Other neat tricks: IRS not paying for the keyboarding (data entry) of the little box denoting "foreign bank accounts," which is a very, very large red flag about "perfectly legal" (and not so) tax avoidance. Or cutting the number of auditors on high income/low taxes accounts.
On the NYT article itself, it's a lot of the kind of reporting described as "two examples a trend doth make" for newspapers, with their amazingly short attention span.
Most interesting aspect, to me anyway, mentioned is about the "unemployment" figures. My last large consulting contract, of some 5 years' standing, was outsourced to India. I worked thereafter at a fifth-rate local newspaper, for $17/hr., a bit less than the $95/hr I was making before (though one would have to reduce that rate by half, as I was putting in 16-hour days much of the time. But $47.50/hr wasn't so bad. Because I'd worked for over a year at the local paper, I got unemployment insurance payments. But after they ran out, I of course no longer counted as "unemployed," I believe. But I was still looking for a job--and as far as I could tell, I was still unemployed, or "unemployed without benefits," as the younger generation might put it.
There may be a trend of reverse-outsourcing in call centers--or of bringing call centers back home. I like to describe the outsourcing of all manner of communications efforts to India as "Britain's Last Revenge" for the Revolution. Because of the British education system transplanted to India, most Indians write, and sometimes speak, better than most even well-educated Americans. But for some reason, perhaps interaction of the latency in satellite or trans-oceanic fiber, or in switches, line amplifiers, CDMA or TDMA, and Indian-accented English, calls for help are usually unintelligible on the call-center side.
My favorite for worst-in-class is/are the JP Morgan/Chase Manhattan call centers in what used to be Bombay (Mumbai). The crowning moment in one call was when I was disconnected while waiting to "stay connected to complete user survey, please."
But, at the end of the hour (not "the end of the day" BS), it would require a lot of good research to find out how many folks really are unemployed. Like, how do state and federal BsLS (bureaus of labor statistics) "know" when off-unemployment rolls citizens have "given up on looking for jobs." I certainly haven't--but the snow on the roof and the multiple degrees and the unusually young children keep putting me in the "good grief, this guy's gonna be too expensive."

The amount of detestment toward women from the men who replied to this article is scary and sad.